Abstract
The recent trends in the public attitudes towards nature, environment, and the cooperative approach of human beings towards their joint living have demonstrated that the society becomes more and more concerned about the environment. Thus, eco-friendly technologies acquire greater significance in all spheres of the human activity. The greenhouse effects leading to the global warming and to the increase in the demand for less environmentally-harmful technology has made it understandable that eco-friendly development is the goal which every organization today has to strive to achieve. The hospitality industry is not an exception as numerous people every day use the services of this industry, and more and more of the visitors give their preference to the eco-friendly hotels, communications, airlines, etc. This paper focuses on the analysis of the “green” hospitality, i. e. on the policies the industry implements to conform to the public demand of being eco-friendly.
Introduction
Recently, the eco-friendly technologies acquire greater significance in all spheres of the human activity. The greenhouse effects leading to the global warming and to the increase in the demand for less environmentally-harmful technology has made it understandable that eco-friendly development is the goal which every organization today has to strive to achieve. The hospitality industry is not an exception as numerous people every day use the services of this industry, and more and more of the visitors give their preference to the eco-friendly hotels, communications, airlines, etc. This paper focuses on the analysis of the “green” hospitality, i. e. on the policies the industry implements to conform to the public demand of being eco-friendly. The scope of this paper encompasses the major environmental issues, the ways of fighting them, the pros and cons hospitality industry representatives see in becoming eco-friendly, as well as the major obstacles that “going green” sets before the hospitality industry players.
Background
The development of the mankind has always been accompanied by the certain attitudes people have had towards nature and the environment we live within. There were the periods when the nature was considered to be a mysterious power, which people were afraid to damage considering it to be a divine creation. With the development of the technological progress, human beings have adjusted the point of view that the nature was just an unlimited resource of useful materials and various conveniences for people. Long centuries of such attitude towards nature have recently resulted in the evident necessity of the environmental protection as a means of saving the human existence on Earth: “It is hard to pick up a newspaper or magazine, or to watch television, without seeing coverage of some new “green” development or event. Every publication, from Vanity Fair to Kiplinger, now has a “green” issue” (Butler, 2008). The reasons to such an attention of the society include the global warming, the melting of the Arctic ice, greenhouse effects, carbon and other gas emissions, etc (Offshack, 2007). Hospitality industry experiences this increase of the social attention to the environmental protection and adopts numerous policies to adjust to it.
Environmental Issues
The modern complicated situation with the environmental protection is subject to consideration of various governmental and non-governmental organizations (Offshack, 2007). Among the former, the federal government together with the local state governments are busy with legislative activities aimed at reducing the greenhouse effects and gas emissions in the air, water, soil, etc. One of the recently adopted legislative acts dealing with this issue is the so called AB 32:
AB 32 establishes a goal of reducing California greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 (11 percent below business as usual), 1990 levels by 2020 (25 percent below business as usual), and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. AB 32 represents a sea change in regulatory policy, roughly bringing California’s climate change regulations into parity with the regulatory efforts made in other developed nations through the international Kyoto Protocol on climate change (Butler, 2008).
The major aim of this legislation is to assure that the industrial enterprises and, what is more important, hospitality buildings work on the reduction of their harmful environmental emissions (Offshack, 2007). The strategy of the law is planned so that to provide for the gradual but constant improvement of the situation.
Moreover, the US governmental organizations aim at receiving the LEED certificate as the sign of their conformity to the eco-friendly standards: “In the United States, almost every major federal agency has committed to building LEED-certified or LEED-equivalent buildings” (Butler, 2008). Hotels and other hospitality buildings are seriously concerned with this as well. For example, Butler (2008) notices “significant hotel mixed-use projects in the pipeline that have registered with the USGBC and are building “green” to achieve some level of status for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” (Butler, 2008). Thus, the trend towards the eco-friendly development of the hospitality industry is comprehensive, and the term to refer to it can be called “green hospitality”: “The world is going green, my friends, so the real question is: Why fight it?” (Aker, 2008). Hospitality industry representatives understand this truth and do not fight the global trend of “going green”. On the contrary, they develop their eco-friendly programs and try to attract the new customers, whose lives are based upon the environmental protection and environmentally aware behaviors.
“Green” Hospitality
Major Policies
It is an undeniable fact stressed by such scholars as Butler (2008), Aker (2008), Enz & Siguaw (1999), and some others, that the environmental protection and eco-friendly development of the hospitality industry is crucial nowadays. Nevertheless, the specific practices and policies that are to be implemented to achieve the proper levels of eco-friendliness are still in question:
Green development and sustainable operations are certainly getting the attention of everyone one in the hotel industry, but developers and operators alike must wonder whether consumers’ current interest in green hotel operation will soon wane, as has happened in the past (Butler, 2008).
Among the major ways in which hospitality companies handle the environmental challenges the comprehensive group approach to them can be singled out. As Aker (2008) argues, there is a strong need to involve all the layers of the company’s organizational structure in the process of “going green”: “Everyone from the ground up has to be involved. Maintenance workers and janitors to the CEOs–everyone has to buy into the green program” (Aker, 2008). The introduction of teamwork during the “going green” process implementation can also be viewed as an effective way to introduce eco-friendly policies to the hospitality industry (Enz & Siguaw, 1999). If properly carried out, these policies allow all the parties concerned to benefit.
Benefits
Thus, benefits of the hospitality industry’s “going green” are evident for all the parties concerned. The environment is protected by the joint effort of the authorities, hospitality industry, and the ordinary citizens. The interests of the hospitality industry are also considered as the constantly larger numbers of customers prefer eco-friendly hotels to ordinary ones. Finally, the customers enjoy the favorable environment while staying in the green hotels and contribute to the global initiative of environmental protection. In more detail, however, all the parties concerned pursue their own goals (Enz & Siguaw, 1999). Benefit is what the hospitality industry representatives plan to obtain from any new initiative they launch. “Going green” is a profitable matter in the sense that it, first of all, helps save costs: “Green leads to more green. Perhaps the most convincing aspect of going green, especially when making a business case, is the remarkable cost savings that result” (Aker, 2008). Thus, saving the funds on waste handling and environmental protection, the companies that implement “going green” programs can direct those funds at the development of the new facilities, customer base, etc.
Moreover, the customer base can be increased through “going green” as such: “There’s an ever-increasing segment of the population looking for properties that are incorporating green and sustainable business practices. It’s not a trend that’s going to go away” (Aker, 2008). In other words, it is a stable trend according to which the modern customers base their choice of a hotel or the airline to use the services of on its being eco-friendly. The recent public attention towards the issue has surprisingly agitated the public mind which makes the hospitality industry conform to these demands or be left behind by other competitors.
Overall Usefulness
Drawing from the above presented facts, the overall usefulness of “going green” can be easily observed. First of all, the social usefulness of the idea is evident in the fact that the public pays attention to environment protection in various ways:
This is the year of the ‘green’ consumer. Green has become a mainstream issue driving millions of consumers to find out how they can live a more eco-friendly existence. “Eco” has led to a new wave of consumer marketing in a grasp for ‘green’ market share (Lawrence, n. d.).
Thus, the concept of “green” is a rather popular idea nowadays as it is based on the hospitality industry financial interests and on the purely moral and eco-conscious interests of the customers.
This interrelation is also observed in the health-related considerations of customers: “Climate, health, and natural resource concerns should be just as important as cost savings, and your positive impact on the environment will have far-reaching consequences” (Aker, 2008). Understanding this fact, the most notable players in the hospitality industry launch their environmental programs and take time and effort to educate their employees and managers in this aspect of work:
In the hotel industry, the major hotel brands, including Marriott, Hilton, Fairmont, and Starwood, are launching initiatives and announcing environmental programs that are likely to have sweeping effects on the development and operation of their properties (Butler, 2008).
All these facts allow speaking of the evident benefit that all the major hospitality industry players see in eco-friendly programs for their buildings and premises. Nevertheless, management staff of hospitality companies is sometimes hard to convince in the benefits of this approach.
Resistance
Management
First of all, management of huge hospitality organizations is resistant to eco-friendly technology because it does not promise any evident benefits to the companies: “Unless you can prove that there are bottom-line savings or that going green meets some market demand, it’s tough to convince senior managers to spend the money” (Aker, 2008). To prove the profitability of “going green” to the management, it is necessary to carry out the calculations of the potential savings that eco-friendly programs might bring and the increase of the customer base they might cause.
The first experiences of the hotels that take up the environmentally-friendly practices prove that there is no threat of loss or bankruptcy for a hotel. “Going green” means learning to save money and natural recourses for the purpose:
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has been in the vanguard of the environmental movement since it launched its Green Partnership Program in 1990. At Fairmont, the environment is part of the culture, not just part of the program (Lawrence, n. d.).
Other examples of the same kind show that eco-friendly programs allow saving over 30% of energy consumption monthly which could be equaled to the triple increase of the hotel’s daily costs and will result in the actual doubling of the average daily rate (ADR). Besides visualization, Aker (2008) views management education as an effective way of overcoming their resistance to “going green”. Conducting monthly meetings of the employees and managers will allow them see the company’s joint goals and understand the importance of “going green” for them.
Profitability
The actual profitability of the eco-friendly programs should also be demonstrated to achieve both: to overcome the management resistance to their implementation and to increase the daily incomes that the hotel might raise from becoming an environmentally aware institution (Offshack, 2007). However, the first step in this process is the formulation of the eco-friendly plan to be implemented in every particular hotel. The conditions of the work might be different, so might the organizational culture and customer base. Therefore, it is necessary to first of all carry out the accounting inspection of the hotel: “Once you have your green team in place, start by looking at all your bills (for utilities, cleaning supplies, food, etc.) to determine your current environmental footprint” (Aker, 2008).
According to the U.S. Green Building Council research (2008), the costs determined will be much smaller than the actual benefits that “going green” can bring. One of the steps that an eco-friendly hotel can take is the marketing policy affiliating this hotel with all its employees, managers, and, what is the most important, customers in their concern about the environmental protection. The encouragement of such initiatives is what the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System deals with. The efficiency of its performance is measured according to the rates of customers’ satisfaction and the public opinions about the hotel, which shows the universal profitability of eco-friendly policies in the hospitality industry.
Conclusions
To conclude, the hospitality industry is especially in need of eco-friendly programs as numerous people every day use the services of this industry, and more and more of the visitors give their preference to the eco-friendly hotels, communications, airlines, etc. The proper following these principles allows the hospitality industry players to achieve “respiratory benefits from improved IAQ, low exposure to VOCs, choices of healthier foods, skincare benefits from non-toxic soaps, less eye strain due to better lighting from efficient CFLs, and designs that incorporate more natural light” (Aker, 2008). All these data show the universal profitability of the eco-friendly programs and practices implemented in the hospitality industry which, however, faces numerous obstacles on its way to becoming “green”.
References
Aker, J. (2008, March). Please do not disturb (the environment): Greening your hotel. Buildings, 102(3), 56-59. Web.
Butler, J. (2008). The compelling “hard case” for “green” hotel development. Web.
Enz, C. A. & Siguaw, J. (1999). Best hotel environmental practices. Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly: Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Collection.
Lawrence, H. (n.d.). Going green for guest, environment, and brand. Web.
Offshack, E. (2007). Going green in the laundry. Lodging Hospitality, 63(6), p. 28.