SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CALIF.—Soul Community Planet (SCP) announced the acquisition of the 41-room, beachfront Laguna Riviera Beach Resort. The historic Laguna Beach hotel marks SCP’s first expansion into California, and its sixth hotel overall. The acquisition advances SCP’s plan to expand its footprint into communities that align with SCP’s healthy, kind, green values. Opened in 1948, the Laguna Riviera is located directly on the beach just two blocks south of Downtown Laguna Beach. Described as a part French Riviera and part Mediterranean retreat, the resort boasts scenic coastal views, direct access to surfing and stand-up paddle boarding, and features a variety of...

LITTLE ROCK, ARK.—Westrock Coffee Co. announced their pledge to responsibly source 100 percent of the company’s coffee and tea by 2025. This supports their foundational sustainability strategy and commitment to purchase and process all products in a manner that is fair to the people who grow and handle it, their employees, peers, and environments. “We are excited to continue the sustainability journey that started 12 years ago with a small exporting business in Rwanda. While our hands-on approach to working with our farmer partners and customers remains the same, we are humbled by the opportunity to expand this across 173...

CORK, IRELAND—Atos and Johnson Controls, the global leader for smart, healthy, and sustainable buildings, announced a global partnership. Atos and Johnson Controls will help private and public sector customers accelerate their journey to Net Zero by providing a unique set of end-to-end advisory services, digital and other key decarbonization capabilities which aims to help clients formulate and sustainably achieve their Net Zero strategy by reducing their commercial, industrial and office building carbon emissions. Over the next decade, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 45 percent to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of containing global warming to 1.5°C....

LONDON—The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) announces the launch of a Net Zero Roadmap for the Travel & Tourism sector to support the industry in combating climate change during its virtual climate week event. It also announced the launch of ground-breaking social and environmental research data. The first time such data will be produced across the whole sector, building on WTTC’s annual high-anticipated  Economic Impact Report (EIR). These vital pieces of work represent WTTC’s biggest deliverables in the sector’s drive towards net zero by 2050. The powerful initiative is being run in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and professional services and consulting experts, Accenture. WTTC made the...

NATIONAL REPORT—The impact human beings have in their own homes is amplified when they head to hotels. The disproportionate impact that hotels have on the environment is clearly laid out by EHL Insights’ hospitality report, which shows hospitality industry emissions must drop by a gigantic 90 percent to meet Paris-compliant levels. Hotels are increasingly looking to go off-the-grid entirely, both to help their business prospects and the long-term health of the planet they rely on. The Off-the-Grid Concept There’s a degree of reclamation to be had when it comes to the term “off the grid”. As CN Traveller highlights, many hotels currently working under this...

PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN—Belvera Partners—a PR consultancy for the B2B travel space—has published the Belvera B2B Sustainability Report 2021: sustainability reporting in B2B travel’s top 350 companies globally. The report analyzes the current state of sustainability reporting in the B2B travel space by reviewing the websites of the top 350 organizations to establish how many have published a report, clear policies or other information related to the topic. Organizations selected for review are based on the Belvera B2B Travel Map, which is a metro-style rendition of the B2B travel ecosystem published earlier this year. The highlights of the study reveal that overall the sector...

CORTE MADERA, CALIF.—Marin Suites Hotel, a 101-room all-suite boutique hotel located in the town of Corte Madera, just minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge, announced the completion of a three year project to install solar panels by Bay Area-based Clean Solar. A fixture in Corte Madera since the 1960s, the ownership of Marin Suites Hotel has made a long-term commitment to reducing its carbon footprint. The hotel’s new solar system produces almost 250,000 kilowatt hours annually, which is the equivalent of planting more than 80 acres of trees, taking 45 cars off the road, or off-setting 15 million miles driven...

I have written about many hotels, resorts and convention centers that have beehives on site. Bees are mentioned in about 80 articles on Green Lodging News, and I have to say that seeing a honeybee in nature is one of the greatest privileges given the struggles they have had in recent years. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, more than half of North America’s 4,000 native bee species are in decline, with 1 in 4 species at risk of extinction. Do what you can to encourage the presence of bees on your property—whether having a beehive or hives...

The perspective that meaningful and credible sustainability reporting is an essential requirement for any responsible business is increasingly becoming accepted, by many companies around world. Yet reporting cannot take place in isolation. Sustainability is a critical aspect of business strategy and operational decision-making, which needs to be embedded in the corporate DNA through a transformative process. That process takes time and requires strong leadership at the C-suite level, which has led to the emergence of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). Less than two decades ago, a CSO was a novelty. The first-known CSO appointment was Linda Fisher at Dupont in 2004. By 2011, there were 29 CSOs in publicly traded companies in the...

LAS VEGAS—Wynn Resorts issued its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, which includes the company’s collective pledges and defined goals to decrease emissions and confront the mounting risk of climate change. The report also outlines how Wynn Resorts’ ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic ran parallel to achieving a gamut of progressive ESG and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) goals, with significant strides made in community outreach and crisis relief efforts, responsible business practices, and protecting human rights. In the report’s forward, Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox remarked, “A truly great company, one founded on the belief that excellence is...