Name: Michelle White
Title: Director, Environmental Affairs
Company: Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Toronto
Number of years with company: Three
My primary responsibilities: “Overseeing the operation of Fairmont’s Green Partnership program and ensuring that its standards are consistently applied at all of our hotels.”
What I enjoy most about my job: “Working with the members of our hotels’ green teams and corporate partners such as the World Heritage Alliance.”
My company’s biggest environmental challenge: “The fact that we are expanding so rapidly and finding ourselves in countries where the environmental infrastructure is not the same. For example, a lot of communities don’t have what is needed to make recycling successful.”
What advice I would give to a hotel company considering going green: “Start small. Meet with your executive team to develop a strategy. Perform an audit to establish benchmarks. A cookie cutter program won’t always work. Every hotel is different.”
TORONTO—As director, environmental affairs for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Michelle White has a world of challenges to deal with each day—literally. Toronto-based Fairmont’s 51 hotels are located not only in the United States and Canada, but also in countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Germany, Singapore and United Arab Emirates. Overseeing green programs all over the world is not such a bad thing for White. In fact, she enjoys interacting with so many green teams—each with its own unique environmental challenges.
With its 17-year-old, award winning Green Partnership Program, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has been an environmental leader in the lodging industry for a long time. It is White’s job to make sure that continues. As part of the program, each associate pledges to do the following for Fairmont:
• Work diligently to minimize Fairmont’s waste stream and conserve natural resources, particularly through energy and water conservation.
• Value the natural and cultural heritage of the company’s properties, allowing it to give its guests an authentically local experience.
• Comply with all applicable environmental legislation and strive to follow best environmental practices.
• Make environmental considerations an important part of decision making.
• Review the objectives of the Green Partnership program on a periodic basis.
• Build local partnerships in the communities where Fairmont does business. These partnerships allow it to share its stewardship message, effect positive change and raise awareness for guests and colleagues.
• Promise to consider the opinions and feedback of guests when examining environmental programs and procedures.
• Identify areas for improvement and innovation at the property level and support the efforts of the Green Teams at each of the properties.
In the three years White has been director, environmental affairs, she has seen a lot of company and industry changes.
“When I started, Fairmont had 42 hotels,” she says. “Now, we have 51. It seems, in many respects, as if I am in a different industry because the idea of ‘green’ has exploded. There has been a change in mindset. I have never been busier.”
White says one area in which she has noticed a significant increase in interest is in meeting planning. Nine times out of 10, she says, RFPs from corporate clients include requests for green practices.
To address that growing green meeting interest, Fairmont launched Eco-Meet earlier this year. Eco-Meet is an environmentally friendly conferencing program intended to minimize harm to the environment during meetings, conferences and similar events. Eco-Meet was developed as a green meeting and conference planning option. In this way, meeting planners can organize conferences and events that consider the environment, result in reduced waste, and also conserve valuable resources.
History of Interest in the Environment
White says she has had an interest in environmental issues for as long as she can remember. At one time she wanted to be a marine biologist. She has more than eight years in the environmental sector, including positions with the provincial governments of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. She holds a Masters of Environmental Science degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and is recognized as one of the lodging industry’s leading environmental champions. This has led to speaking engagements at some of the industry’s most prominent green events.
One of the things she is most proud of, she says, is Fairmont’s efforts to preserve the natural areas where Fairmont’s hotels are located. In late 2006, Fairmont partnered with the World Heritage Alliance to promote conservation, sustainable tourism, and economic development for communities located in and around World Heritage sites. Leading this partnership for the luxury hotel brand is the Fairmont Mayakoba, an ecologically diverse resort located on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, which has been paired with a local tourism network from the nearby Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage site.
Go to Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
