In last week’s column I listed the top 10 most read articles that were posted on Green Lodging News in 2022. In thinking about the last year, I came up with a list of trends I see continuing, emerging—even exploding—in our industry that will continue into this new year. A continuation and increase in goal setting. Whether in alignment with the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals or not, more and more companies, both public and private, are setting goals for decreases in greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption, and waste reduction. Food waste and plastic waste (and climate...

A very happy new year to you! May it be a greener one and a more prosperous one for all of you. Green Lodging News will turn 17 this year—very hard to believe—and in that time the Green Lodging News website has accumulated more than 13,000 articles, many of which make the most read articles overall list time and time again. For this column, as has been done in previous years, I list the most read articles on the website for only those articles that were posted in the previous year—2022 in this case, of course. The articles are somewhat...

As reported on Green Lodging News this past week, Greenview just released its Green Lodging Trends Report (GLTR). It is news for many reasons, but the two main ones are its size and its sole focus on sustainability best practices. The 83-page report is based on data received from about 27,000 hotels across 54 countries. The report was first launched in 2016 and published from 2016 to 2018. Covid disrupted publication of the report, but Greenview continued its work. The result: The 2022 GLTR dataset is six times greater than the 2018 GLTR dataset. I posted two articles on the...

Reducing our industry’s environmental impact takes teamwork and making best practices easily available so that those who are not as far along the green path can copy and improve upon what has been done. That is the message behind the announcement this past week by AHLA to launch Responsible Stay, an industry-wide commitment to make meetings, events, and guest experiences in America’s hotels more environmentally and socially responsible. (See article on Green Lodging News.) The Responsible Stay website details the program’s principles and areas of focus, provides examples of what more than 20 companies are doing, features company success snapshots,...

New data unveiled by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) show the Travel & Tourism sector is not contributing what it was once thought to be contributing to the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions total. Previous estimates have suggested that the global Travel & Tourism sector was responsible for up to 11 percent of all emissions. However, WTTC’s Environmental & Social Research (ESR) shows that in 2019 the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions totaled just 8.1 percent globally. That 8.1 percent is a big “just” but good news nevertheless—but certainly not reason to slow efforts to improve efficiency. According to WTTC,...

Passport Photo Online recently released the results of its “Is Sustainable Travel Trending Up” study. The purpose of the survey of more than 1,000 Americans was to determine if sustainability is still a priority among travelers. Previous similar studies have shown that sustainable travel has indeed become more of a priority in recent years. The following are some tidbits from the survey that stood out for me: Communication Most employers don’t communicate if they are acting on sustainability with about seven in 10 employees unaware of their organization’s green policies regarding business travel. Is your company among those failing to communicate your...

I attended my first trade show in several years this past week—HX: The Hotel Experience and Boutique Design New York (BDNY). Both shows were held at the Javits Center in New York City. While smaller than before the era of Covid, the two shows impressed me greatly with their selection of exhibitors. Almost everywhere I turned, there was an exhibitor with a sustainability story to tell. Sometimes the company’s commitment was not necessarily seen in the product itself but in how it was made and the culture of the company. There were also numerous speaker presentations on the show...

One of the most interesting trends to watch from my seat as an editor has been the evolution of the “green” amenity. I have learned that it is quite a complex issue and a very competitive space for suppliers. If one were to describe the evolution of the greening of the amenity, it would begin with the dispenser and its numerous variations, include the elimination of certain chemicals within the products themselves, involve the shape of the soap bar itself (I loved the version with the hole in the middle), the introduction of alternative plastic and paper containers (including...

The year was 1989 and it was my first experience visiting the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show (now called HX: The Hotel Experience (HX) and paired with Boutique Design New York (BDNY) at the Javits Center in New York City.) I was a much younger editor with Hotel & Motel Management magazine then and did journalism the old-fashioned way—taking photos using Polaroid Instant Cameras and standing there with the suppliers waiting for the photos to develop, writing articles on ancient, slow computers in the press room, and physically taking the pages for the daily show edition to the printer....

With approximately 8,000 properties under its wings, Marriott International, Inc. is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to influencing the direction of our industry—at all levels, including ESG— Environmental, Social, and Governance. Marriott just released its 2022 Serve 360 Report presenting data from 2021 and demonstrating its ESG efforts toward the company’s 2025 Sustainability and Social Impact Goals. Serve 360: Doing Good in Every Direction is the name of Marriott’s sustainability and social impact platform. It was launched in 2017. When a company oversees so many properties, it also oversees a lot of employees. At year-end 2021,...