Hospitably green

I seem to be suffering from a severe bout of déjà vu. Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s infectious, but ten years ago I wrote an article for this same journal entitled ‘Sustainability with Room Service’, in which I examined the impact of the green revolution on the hospitality sector. And at that time, I seem to remember coming away from it feeling somewhat underwhelmed by the industry’s efforts to go green. Well, undoubtedly things have changed. Back then the word ‘Covid’ could not be found in the dictionary and the corporate buzzword (or rather buzz-acronym) was CSR (corporate and social responsibility). Now, three new letters, ESG, rule the corporate jargon and with them all the issues that had been neatly packaged by the letters CSR have been rolled up into green sustainability issues along with more besides. Still, it would be nice to know if anything has really changed in this regard over the last decade when it comes to the hotel sector.

Too many certificates

One major problem faced by the industry ten years ago was the plethora of green standards for hotel operations. Almost every hotel seemed to have a totally different accreditation, but at that time it seemed that Green Key, a certification scheme originating from Denmark, was becoming the most popular. Moreover, I remember asking the hoteliers of a major chain about BREEAM and LEED certification and the only response I was given was a baffled stare. Well, things have changed – sort of. Nowadays, hoteliers do actually know what I am talking about. Leonardo Hotels is keen to point out that its NYX hotel in Varso Place in Warsaw is BREEAM certified and that it is also a great believer in Green Key certification. “By the end of this year, all our hotels (which currently total 111) in Central Europe will be Green Key certified. In Poland, three of our four hotels already are: the Leonardo Boutique Kraków City Center, the Leonardo Boutique Kraków Old Town and the NYX Hotel Warsaw. Another hotel, the Leonardo Royal Warsaw, is also soon to be certified. Our renovation work on this property, which is underway right now, is a big step towards achieving this and it should be certified just after we finish the ongoing improvements,” explains Rosa Ortega Sanchez, the PR and communication manager of Leonardo Hotels. Louvre Hotels is also happy to tout its green credentials, pointing out that it is standard practice for the group to seek Green Key accreditation and that it too has heard of BREEAM and LEED. “Should the Louvre Hotels Group consider a new building for its hotel operations, if it was LEED or BREEAM certified would be a significant factor for the deal,” explains Mateusz Lewandowski, the director of sales for Poland of the Louvre Hotels Group. Not to be outdone, IHG also boasts of its Green Key certification. “We are proud to say we are on our journey to implement Green Key certification across all our managed IHG Hotels & Resorts properties, with our hotels in Portugal and Poland being the first to be certified,” declares Mario Maxeiner, the managing director for Northern Europe of IHG Hotels & Resorts.

According to Bořivoj Vokřínek, the EMEA head of hospitality research at Cushman & Wakefield, the sector is still beset by a multitude of standards. “This is one of the big problems of the service industries. The number of environmental certifications is huge, but people are generally unaware of them. Some of them are third-party verified, but some are not,” he admits. For him, part of the problem is that the typical hotel guest is just the average Joe Bloggs off the street and as such is usually entirely unaware of the prevailing green standards. However, he believes that third-party certification accreditation has strengthened the credentials of many certification schemes. But again, there is a general lack of awareness. “The Global Sustainable Travel Council has positioned itself as a global umbrella organisation to certify the certifications. Green Key and Green Globe are GSTC accredited, meaning that they are recognised internationally and therefore more reliable. However, if you ask someone on the street if they have heard about the GSTC… well, I’ve just asked you and you hadn’t. When a certification is GSTC recognised, for a traveller this means nothing, and they are also unaware of what BREEAM or LEED might mean,” explains Bořivoj Vokřínek.

You get what you pay for

We are constantly being told that the younger generation is much more aware and concerned about green issues, but few people choose their holiday destinations based on sustainability concerns. “The problem is that when you book a hotel for three nights. it’s difficult to clearly see the sustainability features of the property where you are staying. This has improved with Booking.com’s travel sustainable badge and Google’s ‘eco-certified’ badge, which are both displayed when making reservations. There has been some progress, but not all of it is reliable,” points out Bořivoj Vokřínek of Cushman & Wakefield.

Unsurprisingly, holiday travellers have been exerting little pressure on hotel chains to change. Corporate guests, however, are a different story. According to Bořivoj Vokřínek, most hoteliers don’t feel the impact of what he calls transient guests. “Where they definitely have an impact, which most of hoteliers agree on, is when it comes to conference demand, because most of the RFPs [request for proposals] today ask about carbon footprints and energy intensity and whether there is any certification. And the same is true of corporate accounts,” he argues. Tellingly, when asked whether it was standard practice to be Green Key certified, Danuta Marcinkowska, the marketing and PR coordinator of Louvre Hotels Group, tells us that: “This is correct. Firstly, because of our CSR strategy, and secondly, because it is required by most of our corporate partners.” Louvre Hotels Group is not the only chain to highlight this requirement from their corporate clients. “In addition to driving environmental performance, certification can support a hotel’s commercial positioning – for example, when it is required in corporate client requests for proposals. In 2023, more than 70 pct of our client accounts included ESG-related questions in their RFPs, including information on the environmental performance of our hotels, thus highlighting that our corporate customers are increasingly interested in understanding the sustainability credentials of the hotels in their travel schedules,” points out Mario Maxeiner of IHG.

Another obvious source of pressure for hotels to change is coming from the investment side. But here, too, there appears to be a lack of awareness, although to a lesser extent. “When it comes to hotel operational certification, the number of investors who require it is not very big, but they do see it as a positive thing. However, among investors there is an alignment. If they are seeking green certification, it is often Green Key,” says Bořivoj Vokřínek of Cushman & Wakefield.

Green attraction

The pandemic, of course, totally changed everything. Business travel was slashed to nothing and only now is it returning to pre-Covid levels. Perhaps surprisingly, this might have strengthened its influence on the development of the hotel sector. “Business travel has declined but has also recovered more than was expected. In 2023, business travel returned to 80–90 pct of its previous levels and the expectation is that in 2024 it will fully recover. The nature of business travel is slightly different. You no longer have these road warriors travelling 50 nights a year. People now travel less frequently on business but stay longer. Corporate accounts and conferences are not 100 pct of what they used to be, but this means that there is more competition. Hotels are more desperate to attract these business travellers and host their conferences, so they are looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage,” explains Bořivoj Vokřínek. According to Mateusz Lewandowski of Louvre Hotels, this is definitely good for business. “Being environmentally-friendly can indeed attract more guests to a hotel. The growing awareness of and concern about environmental issues among consumers has significantly influenced their purchasing behaviours, including their choice of accommodation. So, being environmentally-friendly not only helps in attracting more guests by aligning with their values and preferences but also contributes to a positive brand image, operational efficiency and unique market positioning. As the awareness of environmental issues continues to grow across the world, the trend for choosing eco-friendly accommodation is likely to strengthen, benefiting hotels that invest in sustainable practices,” predicts Mateusz Lewandowski. Mario Maxeiner of IHG is also certain that being green is a clear way to attract guests and points to a study by the World Travel and Tourism Council that reveals that 75 pct of guests are looking to choose sustainable travel options while 59 pct have already done so in recent years. Indeed, he is quite categorical when he insists that: “The increasing demand for a hotel’s sustainability credentials to be visible means that sustainability has to be a priority across IHG’s diverse brand portfolio, no matter the brand. To provide an example of this, sustainability features throughout the guest experience of our Voco hotels brand, which is also underpinned by a premium hotel experience. The brand’s ethos is that, collectively, small initiatives make a big difference: Filtered water, recycled duvet and pillow fillings, refillable plant-based bathroom products… along with many, many other local hotel initiatives that might seem small – but collectively they all add up.” This stands in direct contrast to the view expressed by Bořivoj Vokřínek, for whom luxury does not necessarily equal sustainability. “In the luxury sector, there is a term called ‘green shushing’ (as in telling to someone to stay quiet). Some luxury hotels are worried that customers might be deterred by green practices if they worry that it will mean that their steak is too small or there won’t be enough pressure in the shower for a luxury experience – so these hotels are apparently taking certain sustainability actions but not marketing them.”

Not so bad after all

Perhaps the hotel sector is not actually so backward in its adoption of green standards when compared to other real estate sectors. Bořivoj Vokřínek believes that the adoption of sustainability standards in the retail sector is also lacking and that the sustainability issues faced by the hospitality sector are somewhat overblown. “Too many conferences start with the opening statement that hotels are the most energy-intensive form of real estate and that this is the biggest problem they will have to deal with over the next decade, but this statement is not exactly true. If you look at other sub-sectors, health care, obviously, has higher energy consumption, but certain retail sectors, such as high street, also have a high energy consumption. Among hotels themselves you have different segments, such as luxury and budget, so obviously the energy intensity will be very different for those as well. The energy reductions required by the Paris Agreement are proportionate – those who drew it up knew that a hospital could never be as energy-efficient as a warehouse. If you look at the thresholds, all asset classes need to reduce their energy consumption by roughly 35 pct between 2023 and 2030, so it’s not true that one asset class has bigger problems than the others,” he points out.

Helping the community

Just like other businesses, hotels are keen to tell us about all the other things they are doing to foster communities, maintain open management standards, and generally make the world a better place. Leonardo Hotels actively supports special schools for young people with disabilities in Leszno and Łowicz. “We have been regularly inviting them to our hotels for employment workshops this year. The pupils have had the opportunity to explore cooking and housekeeping in the LH hotels in Warsaw and Kraków – and some of them have now become trainees at NYX Hotel Warsaw,” reveals Rosa Ortega Sanchez. Mario Maxeiner of IHG also mentions the many different activities held by the group’s hotels in Poland: “Our managed properties regularly host activities to help encourage blood donations as well as to support homelessness charities. The staff of the Holiday Inn Warsaw and Intercontinental Warsaw have held clothes and food collections, while the Intercontinental Warsaw regularly supports the Warsaw Orphanage and recently welcomed the wonderful kids of the Childcare and Education Facility so they could spend the day enjoying the hotel’s amenities,” he says.

Bořivoj Vokřínek of Cushman & Wakefield appears to hold a more old-school view of hotel businesses as mere money-making machines: “They are like chickens raised to lay eggs. They’re there to make money and will do it in the easiest way possible. So if we, as consumers, change our behaviour and choose to stay where we believe it is right to do so, these firms will follow. However, so far people have not been as committed to doing this as they claim in surveys,” he points out.