Home Energy Management Hilton Worldwide Unveils LightStay Sustainability Measurement System

Hilton Worldwide Unveils LightStay Sustainability Measurement System

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MCLEAN, VA.—Following two years of testing, Hilton Worldwide has unveiled LightStay, a proprietary system developed to calculate and analyze environmental impact. In the first full year of findings, the 2009 LightStay results show that the 1,300 Hilton Worldwide properties using the system conserved enough energy to power 5,700 homes for a year, saved enough water to fill more than 650 Olympic-size pools and reduced carbon output equivalent to taking 34,865 cars off the road. Reductions in water and energy use also translated into dollars saved for hotel owners, with estimated savings of more than $29 million in utility costs in 2009.

“Hilton Worldwide and its brands touch hundreds of communities and millions of people around the globe,” said Hilton Worldwide’s president and CEO Christopher Nassetta. “That’s why operating in a responsible and sustainable manner is a priority for our company and a central part of how we do business. Through our focus on sustainability, we look to mitigate our impact on the environment and in the communities in which we operate, create economic value for our owners and, ultimately, provide a better experience for our guests.”

LightStay helped Hilton Worldwide properties using the system reduce energy use by 5 percent, carbon output by 6 percent, waste output by 10 percent and water use by 2.4 percent in 2009 versus 2008. These results have been independently audited and are adjusted for any differences in occupancy levels and major weather events year over year.

Benchmark for Continuous Improvement

“LightStay is an integral part of our effort to operationalize sustainability at Hilton Worldwide,” explained Paul Brown, president of Global Brands & Commercial Services, Hilton Worldwide. “The system goes a long way in helping us to quantify our impact at the property level and companywide. We’re excited about our first year results and look forward to using LightStay to continuously improve hotel performance across our global portfolio.”

LightStay takes into account energy and water use and waste and carbon outputs associated with building operations and services provided at Hilton Worldwide properties. As part of this, the system measures indicators across 200 operational practices including housekeeping, paper product use, food waste, chemical storage, air quality and transportation.

“The insights we gained from the LightStay system prompted our property to launch a waste decomposition program that eliminates as much as a thousand pounds of garbage a day,” said Mark Lauer, general manager, Hilton New York. “The data also inspired us to donate leftover food to a local charity, putting more than 5,000 pounds of food that would otherwise be wasted to good use.”

LightStay also includes a “meeting impact calculator” that measures the environmental impact of any meeting or conference held at a Hilton Worldwide property. This enables meeting planners and corporate travel managers to consider the environmental impact of hotel stays and meetings when making purchasing decisions. In addition, it provides corporate customers with the opportunity to include meeting impact data in their own sustainability reporting.

All Hiltons Will Use LightStay

By December 31, 2011, all 3,500 properties within Hilton Worldwide’s global portfolio of brands will use LightStay, making the company the first major multi-brand company in the hospitality industry to require property-level measurement of sustainability. Consequently, measurement of sustainability performance will become a brand standard, on the same level as service, and evaluated accordingly as part of regular, property-level reviews.

To confirm the effective implementation and validity of LightStay, Hilton Worldwide commissioned KEMA-Registered Quality, Inc.—a management systems design company—to perform a series of third-party audits of LightStay.

“Our extensive audit of LightStay revealed that it is truly a best-in-class system for measuring and analyzing sustainability performance data at hotel properties,” said Steve Dunning, at KEMA-Registered Quality, Inc. “LightStay is rigorous but user-friendly, helping hotels to track and manage sustainability performance at a whole new level.”

Go to Hilton Worldwide.

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