Many of the world’s largest hotel chains have announced they will take part in a major new initiative designed to deliver carbon footprinting and reporting standards for the global hospitality industry.
Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, MGM Resorts International, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts and Premier Inn – Whitbread Group are among those to form a new Carbon Measurement Working Group under the auspices of the International Tourism Partnership (ITP) and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
The working group has been tasked with establishing a consensus on how to calculate and report on carbon emissions as part of an initiative to ensure that customers and investors can compare hotel carbon emissions on a like-for-like basis.
David Scowsill, president and chief executive of the WTTC, said the new standards would build on the hotel industry’s previous efforts to curb its environmental impact through green investments and the setting of carbon emission targets.
“Through this initiative the industry is furthering its commitments to corporate and individual consumers by helping them understand their environmental footprint,” he said in a statement. “A harmonised approach to quantifying and communicating the sustainability of the industry’s products is a firm step towards accomplishing this.”
His comments were echoed by Stephen Farrant, director of the ITP, which was set up in 1992 to promote environmental responsibility across the hotel industry.
“Customers and investors rightly want to know about the carbon footprint of the hotels they are dealing with,” he said. “The fact that 12 global companies in the international hotel sector have come together to achieve, for the first time, this degree of consensus on the complex issue of carbon measurement is testament to both the crucial importance of addressing the carbon issue and the success of the ITP and WTTC joint working group through this first phase.”
The working group said it hoped to complete the first phase of the project and have agreed standards available by next year.
The group also revealed that the draft methodology it is currently working on has been developed with input from Greenview Consulting and has been reviewed by the World Resources Institute, suggesting it will draw on existing corporate emissions reporting standards.
