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Environmental management in
hotels
David Kirk
The hospitality industry exposes many of the conflicts which arise when implementing environmental
policies
Environmental management is a broad term, covering developed a concern not only with the outputs of industry
issues such as: environmental impact (aesthetic, cultural, but also with the input side of the equation with the
ecological and social); sustainability; resource realization that stocks of many raw materials were being
management; and pollution. This article concentrates on depleted at an unsustainable rate.
the management of existing hospitality operations in a
manner which is sensitive to the principles of sound Sustainable development, which is one of the
environmental management, rather than on issues cornerstones of environmental management, covering a
concerned with the building of new hotels and broad range of areas from the maintenance of physical
restaurants. resources, the protection of biological systems, plant and
animal species and natural habitats and the preservation
Global and national policies and actions of cultures, may be defined in a number of ways:
It is possible to consider environmental management as a development that meets the needs of the present without
hierarchy of policies and actions: compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs[2].
● global environmental policies;
● national environmental policies; we have a moral duty to look after our planet and to hand it
on in good order to future generations [3].
● responsibility of business;
Global and national interest and the development of
● local action.
policy will, by itself, not be effective in inducing change.
Environmental problems must be tackled at all of these There are five main forces for change:
levels. There is a need for global policy making and target (1) legislation and codes;
setting, such as the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which set
targets for CFC emissions. The European Union has (2) fiscal policies;
brought in a large number of Directives which relate to (3) public opinion;
the management of the environment. Many of these have (4) consumer pressure;
been, or are being, implemented as national policies.
Environmental management is also important to the (5) financial advantages resulting from saving
individual company, since many are now being measured resources.
not only on their financial performance but also on their
responsibility towards the environment. This affects both
shareholders and consumers [1, p. 18]. Principles of environmental management
The principles of environmental management have been
Some of the milestone events in recent environmental established in the framework of British Standard
history include: BS 7750: Environmental Management Systems[4]. This
● 1956: Clean Air Act; standard, which has many parallels to ISO 9000 on
Quality Management Systems, outlines a number of
● 1970: Department of Environment established;
stages in establishing these procedures in any
● 1972: publication of “Limits to Growth”; organization. The suggested stages are:
● 1973: formation of Green Party; ● formulating environmental policy;
● 1974: Control of Pollution Act; ● ensuring total commitment of all in the
● 1987: Montreal Protocol (CFC emissions); organization;
● 1987: Treaty of Rome; ● carrying out an environmental review;
● 1987: Bruntland Report (sustainable development); ● determination of responsibilities within the
● 1987: HM Inspectorate of Pollution;
organization;
● preparing a register of environmental effects;
● 1990: European Environmental Agency;
● establishing objectives and targets;
● 1990: White Paper on Environmental Strategy;
● implementing management systems;
● 1992: Rio Earth Summit Conference;
● commissioning periodic environmental audits;
● 1993: UK National Sustainability Plan.
● performing regular systems reviews based on
Environmental management can be traced back at least performance.
40 years to the post-war years when the expansion of
industry was seen to be causing damage to the The first step in this process is usually considered to be
environment and to the health of people. Initial concern the development of a written environmental policy, which
was with gross pollution caused by the discharge of toxic should cover general principles including a total
materials. However, the interest of environmentalists commitment at all levels of the organization, together
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN HOTELS 5
with: strategies for complying with laws, codes and ● receive expert help in environmental management
company standards; the identification of responsibility techniques, based on international best practice;
within the organization; and the involvement of partners, and
including suppliers, servicing companies, customers and ● demonstrate their commitment through a publicly
the local community. recognized green globe logo.
To be totally effective, the adoption of environmental There are a number of specific issues which relate to
policies must come from the top. Without a commitment environmental management of the hospitality industry.
at the highest level of the company, it is unlikely that First, there are those that relate to the customer, who
ideas developed throughout the organization will visits the establishment as a part of the experience and
flourish. Some companies are starting to incorporate who may arrive with images of luxury, comfort and
environmental values in their mission statements. To be indulgence. For example, the use of soap and shampoo
effective, this vision must be converted into clear dispensers may reduce waste but may be contrary to
objectives and targets together with effective monitoring, customer expectations[8]. Second, the business usually
control and communication[1. pp. 40-7]. has a local customer base, has a strong identity with the
local community and is often a part of the local tourism
The next step is to conduct an environmental audit of the product.
organization[5]. From this it is possible to identify a
number of areas for improvement which can be defined in The hospitality industry is not a dirty industry in the
terms of precise targets against which achievement can sense that it causes gross pollution or releases toxic
be monitored. materials into the environment. It is typical of many small
companies, particularly those in the service sector. What
An environmental management system can be seen as damage do hotels do to the environment? The industry
having a number of linked aspects: consumes valuable raw materials such as energy, water,
(1) Purchasing policies: food, wood and plastics. There are a number of
● develop partnerships with suppliers; undesirable emissions, including CO 2 , CFCs, noise,
● identify sustainable products; smoke, smells. The industry wastes energy, water, food
● choose products with sensible packaging. and packaging and many of these waste materials require
disposal. There are also issues about the environmental
(2) Waste management:
health of staff. Because of location, the industry may
● minimize waste in operations;
encourage the use of the private car rather than public
● reuse as much waste as possible;
transport. Some of these issues may seem to be relatively
● the segregate of waste which can be recycled.
unimportant and yet are significant when added together.
(3) Waste disposal: As an example, the overall consumption of gas by UK
● establish partnerships with disposal companies; hotels for heating and hot water results in 5 million tons
● ensure disposal methods are sound; of CO2 emissions every year and costs £130 million each
● only use land-fill disposal as last resort. year.
54 per cent of customers said they were environmentally savings through good housekeeping measures and 10 per
minded travellers and that they wanted to stay in hotels cent savings by using relatively low-cost measures.
that show concern for the environment. Research in the Heating, air-conditioning and ventilation systems are the
US indicates that customers are not willing to pay extra highest cost areas (29 per cent) followed by lighting (21
to fund green policies[10,11]. However there have been per cent) and catering (15 per cent).
some interesting pilot schemes whereby guests to a
locality are encouraged to contribute to local As an example of the case studies, one describes the
environmental protection schemes[12]. The concept of InterContinental Hotel at Hyde Park Corner, which was
hotel classification based on environmental testing has able to reduce energy consumption from 870 kWh/m2/
also been developed in some areas such as Thailand[13]. annum to 575 kWh/m2/annum between 1980 and 1992, a
saving of 34 per cent. This was done through a mixture of
This raises the interesting question of whether methods including changing lighting, recovering heat
environmental management will increase the operating from refrigeration equipment, energy management
costs, which must be passed on to the customer. systems on boilers and staff awareness campaigns.
Environmental management does not have to involve Another example is the Forte Crest Hotel in West
capital intensive projects and may not necessarily Yorkshire which converted to energy-efficient lighting to
introduce increased running costs. Indeed, where poor reduce energy costs by 45 per cent and replacement costs
management is linked to waste, sound environmental by 85 per cent.
management can reduce costs[14]. This means starting
with a programme of staff training together with the Waste management and waste disposal has been another
initiation of low-cost, easy-to-achieve projects. Once area of concern[20]. The importance of differentiating
progress has been made and confidence established, it is between waste minimization and waste disposal
possible to move on to projects which require moderate management is critical in this area since it is much more
investment. It is advisable to leave high investment effective to prevent waste in the first place than it is to
projects until the principles have been accepted and manage the waste once it has been produced[21]. The list
benefits established. below shows a hierarchy of waste minimization going
from the most desirable form of disposal at the bottom, to
Taking food waste as an example, research in the late the least desirable at the top:
1970s and early 1980s on food waste in UK hotel and
● landfill – most damaging;
restaurants[15] indicated that 15.5 per cent of edible food
was wasted. A similar figure for hospital catering ● incinerate – recover energy content;
departments was 30 per cent. These figures represent a ● recycle – recover material for reuse;
high monetary value because of high value-added
● reuse – reuse the material with no processing;
associated with the waste of prepared food[16]. It also
represents a waste of energy because the food has been ● minimize – use minimum packaging, eliminate
transported, stored and cooked. Much of this waste can waste.
be controlled through sound management practices. Other areas of concern have included the change from the
use of CFCs in refrigeration equipment to new gasses
Most examples of successful environmental management which will not damage the ozone layer[22].
are in the area of energy management, where there are
clear motivations in terms of financial savings. A survey
in 1987 indicated that 33 per cent of hotel groups had Data from a survey of hotels in Edinburgh
invested in computerized energy management and/or
A questionnaire was sent to the general managers of 145
property management systems, 30 per cent in heat
hotels in the city of Edinburgh, of whom 53 replied, a
recovery and 23 per cent in combined heat and power[17].
In addition to energy consumption in heating, ventilation response rate of 37 per cent. The first issue raised was,
and air-conditioning (HVAC) applications, catering areas “Do the hotels have a policy statement?”. This was seen to
can also be prolific consumers of energy[18]. be important because of the central role of a written
policy[23], as described by the HCIMA in their Technical
In the UK, the Energy Efficiency Office ( funded by the Brief on Environmental Issues[24]. According to this
Department of Environment), in conjunction with the brief:
Building Research Establishment, has developed a Every business should have a policy statement which
programme on energy efficiency in the hotel and catering should as a minimum make a commitment to: the concept of
industry[19] . They have developed a number of case sustainable development; practical action to protect the
studies on good practice in the industry. These case environment.
studies show that in hotels there is a wide variation in Of the hotels that replied to the survey, 19 per cent had a
energy costs in the UK, from £300 to £1,000 per bedroom formal written policy statement covering environmental
per year. They project that is possible to make 5 per cent management. Most of these had started this policy
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN HOTELS 7
between one and three years ago. There was no Figure 1. Effects of environmental management on business
significant difference in the distribution of these replies
between large hotels and small hotels (less than 20 Score
rooms). Similarly there was no significant difference 5
3.5
Of those hotels who had established a policy, the most 3
frequently stated improvements resulting from this
2.5
policy were:
2
● savings on heating;
1.5
● recycling bottles and cans; 1
Profitability Customer Employee Local Public Market
● purchasing of biodegradable detergents; satisfaction satisfaction community relations advantage
Some of the result from the survey are described below. The influence of ownership is shown in Figure 3. In
Since the number of respondents involved is small, only general, independent hotels envisaged less significant
descriptive statistics are used and these result must be benefits when compared to those hotels which were part
seen as indicative only. of chains or consortia. As with the effect of size, the most
striking differences were in the areas of public relations
Mean scores indicate that overall most people saw and marketing, with the independent hotels seeing less of
positive effects of environmental management, with the an advantage.
greatest effect being on the local community and public
relations, as shown in Figure 1. Given the work of the
Energy Efficiency Office in establishing clear financial Figure 3. Effects on business: ownership
benefits from energy management, it was interesting to Score
note that an increase in profitability was not seen as the 5
most important effect.
4
David Kirk is Professor and Head of Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Queen Margaret College,
Edinburgh, UK.