NEW YORK—HX: The Hotel Experience and Boutique Design New York (BDNY), two adjoining trade shows held at the Javits Center November 13 to 14, wrapped up this week with numerous first-time suppliers introducing green products and services. In addition, veterans of the two shows were back to tout the green upsides to their products and services to the thousands of attendees. It would be impossible to list all the suppliers deserving of publicity, but the following are many of them, along with a brief description of what they featured at the shows. Sapphire Beverages introduced its water in easy-to-recycle aluminum...

MIAMI—Vindow Inc., the cloud-based travel technology platform that brings buyers and sellers of contracted accommodations together to facilitate a more effective RFP and contracting process, is now a member of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), working with the organization to make travel more sustainable. Vindow is the only cloud-based, SaaS platform that combines a centralized, full lifecycle management of the procurement process—from RFP generation through contract management—with AI-powered, intelligent market analytics. In addition to the valuable business benefits the platform offers, it also gives buyers and sellers an easy way to decrease their carbon footprint. Vindow’s online RFP management and contracting functionality facilitates...

BROOMFIELD, COLO.—As the 2022/23 ski and ride season gets underway in the northern hemisphere, and with climate change in sharp focus, Vail Resorts released its fifth annual Progress Report outlining the progress the company has made towards reaching a zero net operating footprint by 2030. Vail Resorts is ahead of schedule to meet its emissions goals and is on track to reach zero waste to landfill and zero net operating impact on forests and habitat to achieve a zero net operating footprint by 2030. The report details how the company actively works to mitigate climate change and preserve the environment, promotes the...

BETHESDA, MD.—myDigitalOffice (MDO), the fast-growing hotel performance management platform, released an online sustainability calculator and certification program aimed at shining the spotlight on hotel owners and operators dedicated to reducing their environmental footprint. The calculator allows any hotel company to enter information specific to their sustainable operating processes and apply for MDO Sustainability Certification, which can be included in the organization’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) materials, including requests for event proposals. Innovative companies today are prioritizing sustainability and building a better future. Recent studies show that a new generation of travelers wants to patronize properties that align with their values...

SHARM EL-SHEIKH—During this year’s COP27 in Egypt, Radisson Hotel Group reaffirmed its strong commitment to sustainability by signing the Glasgow Declaration and encouraging other hospitality groups to join the call for strong actions to halve emissions over the next decade and reach Net Zero emissions as soon as possible before 2050. Radisson Hotel Group is one of the top 1,000 companies with published approved science-based targets and has taken significant steps to define a clear path to becoming Net Zero by 2050, aligned with the landmark 2015 Paris Accord. Tourism & Travel as a sector represented 1/10 jobs and over...

CINCINNATI—Cintas Corp. unveiled its new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) branding identity, which was created to help raise awareness and bring consistency and cohesion to Cintas’ ongoing ESG efforts and initiatives. The newly introduced brand will be prominently featured and discussed in the Cintas 2022 ESG Report, which will be published in January 2023. The company’s third sustainability report will recap the company’s fiscal year 2022, which ended on May 31, 2022. “Cintas’ sustainable business strategy dates back to our company’s origins and we have always worked closely with the communities in which we live and serve, so the theme ‘A...

BETHESDA, MD.—Pebblebrook Hotel Trust announced that it published its fourth annual Environmental Sustainability and Social Responsibility Report covering the company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance in 2021 and its commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices and social responsibility to its employees and other stakeholders. Pebblebrook’s 2022 ESG Report is aligned with international reporting standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), includes disclosures from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and reflects the company’s commitment to understanding and planning for sustainability risks through the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). The 2022 ESG Report also sets forth the...

NATIONAL REPORT—Eliminating single-use amenity waste is one of the hospitality industry’s biggest waste challenges. Amenity dispensers certainly do a good job reducing that waste although some dispensers come with cartridges that need to be recycled. At least two companies have developed dissolvable amenities—each requiring the addition of water by the guest. The first company, Hotel Emporium, offers compostable EcoPods that include powder in containers made from 60 percent bamboo fiber, 30 percent sugarcane fiber, and 10 percent wood fiber. The second company, Nohbo, encapsulates amenities in water-soluble film. The film biodegrades instantly when met with water—an on-site zero-waste solution. No...

The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the U.S., now and in the future. To some extent, global climate change is addressed, as the U.S is not isolated from global impacts. A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the recent report, which was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The report is set up so that you can easily view sections individually. For example, there is a section on response strategies to climate change. Climate change...

While governments and corporations struggle—unsuccessfully for the most part—with climate change, sea level rise and carbon neutral objectives, individual tourism and hospitality visionaries need to focus on the micro sustainability initiatives demanded by our customers. When asked for sustainability policies by meeting planners and travel agents, hotel sales people invariably have nothing to offer other than potentially “we are looking into it” or maybe “our brand has an aggressive sustainability statement, but we can’t participate because our management company has different policies.”  Inevitability, catering departments haven’t engaged in food rescue, sometimes blaming Covid-related restrictions and are often unaware of the...