Going green – and now there’s no stopping the hotel groups

When the Accor hotel group called an April 17 press conference in Paris to outline its commitment to sustainable development it was delighted with the attendance by the media: In total, 130 journalists from 15 countries took part in the event.

Except not one of them was in Paris. They logged on to Accor’s first live, online, environmentally friendly media conference from their homes and offices around the world.

The main environmental impacts of the conference were limited to the travel of Stewart Moore, chief executive Director EC3 (managers of the Green Globe programme), from Australia to Shanghai; and the rail trip of Rob McIntyre, general manager Novotel London Tower Bridge, from the United Kingdom to Paris for the live broadcast.

The event gave Accor the opportunity to present its worldwide environmental certification programme with Green Globe, which aims to certify Novotel’s entire network by 2010.

Accor has also launched a towel re-use programme that aims to reduce use of water, energy and chemicals across its 4,000 hotels with the savings contributing to the funding of up to three million trees annually by 2012.

Michael Issenberg, chairman of Singapore-based Accor Asia-Pacific, said, “It’d be wrong to say the environment is increasing in importance because it’s always been important. I don’t like it that it’s trendy now – it is a long term issue.”

A Deloitte survey found that nearly half of all travellers try to be “environmentally friendly”, and almost a quarter of them are willing to pay more for green hotels, resorts and rental cars.

In turn, the hotel groups are demanding the same environmental awareness from their suppliers and contractors.

Marriott International has gone to its top 40 suppliers to look at their portfolio of products and assess their environmental quality, demanding changes when necessary.

And by year-end, Marriott guests and group customers will also be able to offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated from their hotel stays by contributing to a fund to help protect 1.4 million acres of endangered rainforest in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

Barbara Powell, director, international social responsibility, Marriott International, wants a certification programme to validate a hotel group’s green credentials.

“There are a lot of schemes out there but there is no global answer,” she said. “What schemes there are tend to be run for- profit businesses who put a cost on hotels’ joining, or they’re regional or local schemes.”