Sustainability
regulation and legislation that impacts hoteliers. In the UK, sustainability disclosure regulations, as
well as the Environment Act 2021, aim at reducing plastic use, such as bathroom miniatures, as well as playing a part in guiding the elimination of food waste. In Singapore, the government plans to go green, focusing on ensuring most of the hotel stock hits international sustainability standards by tracking emissions and focusing on water, waste, more sustainable procurement and better conservation of energy. And in California, a 2022 bill on reducing food waste had an outsized impact on hotels, with separate regulations banning small plastic bottles outright. Increasingly, sustainability is a must-do governed all over the world by growing regulations. Credentialing sustainable efforts is a plethora of
certifications, such as the United Nations Development- influenced Global Sustainable Tourism Council standards. These showcase how far hotels are along in their sustainability efforts, something consumers increasingly care about. For one, it’s hardly as though pressure to go green is just from governments: 78% of travellers prioritise hotels that have sustainable practice, according to a
Booking.com study.
Waste not want not On this landscape, hotels are stepping up. A Deloitte EHIC sentiment survey found that while financial and staffing concerns were still top of mind for hotels, there was a 6% jump (55% to 61%) in hotels that were prioritising sustainability and climate change initiatives. Even back in 2015, the International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management reported that 77% of hotels were making efforts to become more sustainable. These trends have continued. A recent renovation of London’s The Savoy includes energy coming from renewable sources, sensors that turn off appliances when not needed, and AI tools that track and reduce food waste, with less than 2% of waste going to landfill. The famous destination is even gunning to be carbon-neutral by 2028. It’s reducing food waste where IHG Hotels & Resorts is focused, too. It’s often the visible or headline-making elements of a hotel’s sustainability plan that capture attention: EV charging points, signposting of locally sourced ingredients, solar panels acting as handsome exterior rainscreen cladding. Of course, such guest- attracting elements are part of the hotel giant’s first carbon-neutral branded hotel, voco Zeal Exeter Science Park, but there is a focus on behind-the- scenes waste management, too. It’s at the carbon-neutral hotel that IHG has rolled out waste reduction programmes. Here, single-use plastics from guest rooms are a simple but critical part of this; a focus that will be extended to meeting and event spaces by December for all hotels. Indeed, any plans in Exeter are part of a wider waste reduction tack across the IHG estate. In 2019, bathroom
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miniatures were replaced with refillable dispensers. As part of a ‘prevent, donate, divert’ plan to reduce food waste, staff have been trained on how to donate unused food, with 41,000 meals donated across 2024. At the Holiday Inn Express franchise, individual sachets of condiments have been replaced by bulk receptacles. At other hotels, bottled water has been replaced by filtered. There’s also a turn to the circular economy of
items. US hotels, under refurbishment or renovation, have been guided on how to dispose of waste in an environmentally friendly way, also rolling out a new way white goods can be effectively refurbished. In some Holiday Inns, bedside cabinets and beds are turned into lockers and coat hangers.
Modelling sustainable strategy IHG’s waste efforts are only one part of a broader ten- year sustainable and responsible business strategy, however. It’s one that also has a clear energy focus. “We have directed our carbon reduction work towards three principal areas,” says Joanna Kurowska, VP & MD at IHG Hotels & Resorts, UK and Ireland. “We can control and influence implementing energy efficiency measures across our hotel estate; pioneering low-carbon hotels; and supporting our hotels to source renewable energy.” They’re not the only ones. Philip Greer, general manager at the University Arms, the oldest hotel in Cambridge and part of Marriott Bonvoy, explains that the hotel has been single-use plastic free since 2020, with all guest waste recycled and the on-site restaurant producing zero food waste. There is training on how to ensure any produce for the on-site restaurant is used in a ‘nose-to-tail’ manner, so to speak, ensuring no waste. The University Arms also has a focus on ensuring water is not wastefully used, an approach that must balance with being in a historically dry county and not impacting the guest experience. It’s a tricky ask, says Greer, but made possible by infrared sensors and reducing overall water usage. “We also aim to serve
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Above: Cambridge’s University Arms operates a zero-waste kitchen for guests.
Opposite: voco
Milan is committed to sustainability and CSR.
University Arms Press
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