How to Green a Hotel

With concerns about the environment, global warming and carbon neutrality now a mainstream issue, taking steps to green your hotel has never been more important. Making your hotel environmentally friendly requires a moderate investment of time and money, but in the long run the financial and ecological benefits will be well worth it.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Certification from an environmental benchmarking company like Green Globe International

1. Cut down on your hotel’s operational waste. Use computers and electronic media for all types of intra-hotel record keeping and guest management. Modernize your reservation system to ensure you can provide your guests with paperless reservations, and stop printing superfluous brochures, menus, receipts and pay stubs.

2. Minimize your environmental footprint. Consult with experts like those at Green Globe International for advice on a whole range of conservation and neutrality topics, like what kind of thermal management system would be most appropriate for your facility, how you could incorporate solar power, and what kind of toilets, faucets and shower heads you could install to save the most water possible.

3. Subtly encourage your guests to be mindful of the environment. Without cramping their style or inhibiting their ability to enjoy themselves, take steps to minimize your guests’ environmental footprint. Encourage them to recycle, and avoid littering on the hotel grounds or the surrounding area. Provide discrete tips on the local environment, and convey how serious your hotel is about keeping it in good shape.

4. Network with environmentally conscious hotels, tour operators and travel agencies. This gives you a platform for attracting an increasingly numerous demographic of travelers who take commitment to the environment seriously. Be sure that they practice what they preach by checking to see if their sustainability efforts have been certified by an independent observer, like EC3 Global or Green Globe International.

5. Certify your commitment to the environment. This can be done inexpensively by joining an organization like Green Globe International, the leading international green brand, which was established as a response to the United Nations Rio de Janeiro summit for sustainable tourism development. With the Green Globe imprimatur, you show both regular tourists and the whole tourism industry that you are committed to environmental responsibility and sustainability.

Tips & Warnings

• Act promptly to green your hotel, before politicians and bureaucrats step in to do it for you. With lawmakers coming under increasing pressure to address global warming, it's important for business owners to stay two steps ahead of them. Joining an organization like Green Globe International and following their benchmarking guidelines goes a long way to show politicians and the public that you're a responsible steward of the environment.

Resources

• Green Globe International