If you thought that trying to measure carbon emissions from flights was difficult enough, then doing the same for hotels and other forms of accommodation, and doing it accurately, is even more of a conundrum.
While there are only so many different types of aircraft and cabin configurations flying around the world, every hotel is different both from the physical building it occupies to the progress each property or chain is making along its sustainability journey.
This makes estimating the carbon footprint accurately from a business stay far from simple from a corporate travel buyer’s perspective. But it can’t be ignored, particularly with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) now in force and larger companies having to formally report their Scope 3 emissions from business travel in 2025.
The subject certainly seems to be moving up the priority list for buyers, particularly for those organisations who have already been heavily focused on driving down emissions from air travel.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Attend any event on sustainability and you’re almost certain to hear the familiar mantra: “You can’t reduce your emissions unless you can measure them”. But even measuring emissions from transport services isn’t straightforward, with multiple different figures delivered from different methodologies for the same seat on the same flight.
Accommodation has even more variables than flights and trains, which presents some “unique challenges” for collecting reliable data on emissions, says Cameron Kelly, advisory lead at Thrust Carbon.
“Hotels vary significantly in their size, location, design and operational practices,” explains Kelly. “This diversity makes it harder to standardise and compare emissions data across the accommodation sector. However, efforts are ongoing to improve data quality and standardisation.”
There is currently a myriad of different methods for measuring accommodation emissions, but many of these take a very broad-brush approach by estimating hotels’ carbon footprint simply by their location.
Two of the most popular methods are the HCMI (Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative) tool that hotels can use to measure and communicate their carbon footprint, and the methodology created by the UK’s DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), which assesses average emissions by country. But both these options are far from perfect.
Andrew Perolls, CEO of sustainability specialist Greengage, says: “It’s good to have this common measurement and 25,000 hotels use HCMI. The limitations are that it only covers 30 markets and certain Scope 3 elements – guest food and beverage is not included – and the quality of HCMI data relies heavily on the accuracy of data provided by hotels that could be prone to errors or inconsistencies.”
Perolls adds that the “health warning” with using DEFRA’s methodology is that it applies to all hotels within a country, with the city location, room size and hotel facilities not taken into consideration.
Technology-focused TMC Navan is one of those companies currently using the DEFRA database for hotel emissions, which is compliant with the requirements of CSRD. But Jonas Hammes, senior director of strategy and operations at Navan, adds: “There is still room for improvement in the standardisation, granularity and accuracy of hotel carbon emissions reporting.”
There are already moves to make hotel sustainability data more comprehensive and granular, such as HRS’s Green Stay Initiative. This provides per-property data based on a methodology that has recently secured endorsement from international standards agency ISO, as well as complying with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standards.
In another sign of an increased focus in this area, the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) recently published a list of standards for sustainable accommodation procurement (see panel at foot of article for more details).
Lobbying group BT4Europe also hopes that the forthcoming CountEmissionsEU initiative – that is designed to provide more standardised CO2 data – will eventually be extended beyond transport services to cover accommodation as well.
INCREASED CORPORATE FOCUS
There are signs that just having a green logo or badge alongside a hotel on an online booking tool are no longer enough, particularly with the method for assessing a property’s sustainability under more scrutiny both by corporates and regulators.
Online travel giant Booking.com has recently removed its own Travel Sustainable badge from around 100,000 hotels after the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets said the system could be “misleading” to consumers. The OTA is now working on a new set-up using certification from specialist third parties.
Corporates also seem to be asking more questions about the sustainability of accommodation within recent RFPs – not just on emissions but also about the hotel’s wider practices.
“Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of sustainability-related questions in RFPs,” says Thrust Carbon’s Kelly. “They cover topics such as energy efficiency, waste management, water conservation and the presence of sustainability certifications.”
Navan’s Hammes agrees: “We are receiving more enquiries about various aspects of sustainability, from detailed emissions reporting based on the size and occupancy of hotel rooms to knowing whether a hotel is powered by green electricity or offers electric vehicle charging stations.”
Samantha Van Leeuwen, head of hotels and venues at global consultancy PwC, says the sustainability of its accommodation programme is now “a huge area of focus for us”.
“We have always been focused on air and emissions – by shifting classes we have made huge inroads into these emissions,” she said at a recent AltoVita Summit in London.
“That has now shifted to the hotels and serviced apartments sector. We want to see the emissions and track the emissions. We want to provide a choice for travellers and our global mobility teams. We will start reporting on it in more detail,” she explained.
HOTEL TARGETS
Of course, measuring emissions and other sustainability criteria is only part of the equation with hotels under pressure to rapidly reduce their carbon footprints. The major global hotel groups have produced comprehensive sustainability reports and issued challenging targets – both in the short and long-term.
Franck Sibille, Hyatt’s area VP for Spain and Morocco, says: “We have the building itself and that’s the biggest factor in becoming carbon neutral. Reducing our carbon footprint is very important to Hyatt. We are taking this very seriously.
“We are also now using cameras to monitor and trace our food waste in all the hotels. The goal is to reduce that. Over time, new European laws will force us to communicate our wastage as well.”
Many of the initiatives instigated by hotels may barely be noticed by hotel guests, such as changing the taps and showerheads to reduce water consumption, using large soap and toiletry dispensers instead of single-use plastics, installing motion-sensitive lighting systems, and providing chargers for electric vehicles.
But we’re still in the relative foothills compared with what hotels need to achieve on sustainability. For example, Marriott’s recent sustainability report showed that its renewable energy use only reached 2.9 per cent in 2023, compared with a 30 per cent target for 2025. The company is, however, making more progress in areas such as reducing its overall carbon intensity.
As with other areas of sustainability, there’s plenty of work ahead for all the players in the corporate travel and accommodation sectors.
SETTING STANDARDS
By Chris Davis
The Global Business Travel Association Foundation has recently created a set of standards for sustainable accommodation procurement.
They include a bank of 50 questions designed for buyers to consider including in their accommodation RFPs (requests for proposals), giving hoteliers the opportunity to answer a standardised set of sustainability questions.
Not all questions are designed to be included in a company's RFP, with the intention being for buyers to consider which questions are best suited to their own organisation’s sustainability goals.
There are questions on hotel environmental, social and governance policies, plans and targets, as well as the hotel's certificates and sustainability accreditations. It also includes questions on individual properties' carbon emissions, as measured in CO2 equivalent emissions per room per night.
Other questions focus on energy consumption, water use, waste management approach, food and beverage – including the availability of plant-based meals – as well as the availability of electric vehicle charging stations, plus the biodiversity of amenities and operations.
The standards can be downloaded from the GBTA Foundation website.
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