New research creates carbon emission measurement standards

12 Nov, 2012 By: Elliott Mest

---

NEW YORK CITY--A recent panel held at the American Hotel & Lodging Association's Fall Conference explored the findings of the hotel industry’s latest method for measuring a property’s carbon emissions.

The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative, developed by WTTC and the International Tourism Partnership, grew out of the mutual need for hotels to be able to track and report their overall carbon footprint to corporate clients requesting them. The Initiative creates a common calculation for rooms of the footprint for rooms and meetings by measuring the total square footage of a property’s guestrooms, corridors, meeting space, back of the house and public areas.

Phase one of the draft for the Initiative was implemented in 2011, and in June of 2012 the HCMI 1.2 launched, with 23 members as of today. According to Eric Ricaurte, principal at Greenview, the HCMI is standardizing internal brand systems and processes, streamlining standards requested by clients.

“Right now the measurements are intended only for client requests,” Ricaurte said. “They are not very effective for property-level information since the metrics may not be good for comparisons. This is because they comparisons are not ‘fair,’ and comparing one property to another is not the goal of the HCMI.”

“The main question right now is, ‘how do we use it to answer customer demand,’” said Maury Zimring, director of corporate responsibility for InterContinental Hotels. “The biggest benefit is that it helps create uniformity across the entire industry. We can also use it to answer customer or questions at will. Also, we can use this to help us focus on sustainability measures.”

Faith Taylor, SVP of sustainability & innovation for Wyndham Worldwide, noted the increasing number of greenhouse gas emission laws in the U.S., with the current count at 24. “New York City hotels must report emissions or get fined,” Taylor said. “Going green saves money and increases your business’ reputation. These days your stock value can be linked right to your environmental information.”

“Down the road, environmental management systems will be able to compare hotels as long as everyone is using the same accounting principles,” Taylor said. “We want to figure out the metrics and try to compare hotels to develop an industry database.”

 

Topic : Carbon Emissions, Sustainability
External Source : Hotel Management