In
the category of no good deed going unpunished, environmentalist Jay
Westerveld penned an essay in 1986 taking the hotel industry to task
for its linen and towel re-use programs. Westerveld thought it a double
standard that a hotel should promote an environmental practice that
actually saved it money in the process. It was for this sin that he
mixed two words to coin a phrase that reson-ates in the industry louder
today: green washing—the practice of over-marketing environmental
claims.
Twenty-two years ago, towel and linen re-use programs,
along with energy management and recycling programs, were just
beginning to pick up speed. Today, entire chains of hotels are being
launched on the premise of environmental responsibility and nearly
every property embraces some degree of greenness. And as more and more
players market the putative greenness of their properties, the issue of
green washing is more widely prevalent and increasingly more complex.
Defining
and describing the term is, however, easy enough. As Faith Taylor, vice
president for sustainability and innovation at Wyndham Worldwide,
describes green washing, it’s all about transparency. “It’s more front
and center, given what’s happening in all sectors of the economy—just
being what you say you are in regard to sustainability.
“This is
one issue people are really passionate about,” Taylor says. “People who
are green are really green. But what happens is a lot of people jump to
do so many green things but they are not necessarily backing it up with
verification or certification.”
Being green has onion-like
layers that a determined person could peel away to nothing. Towel
re-use, Taylor points out, clearly has everything going for it at first
glance. What’s not to respect in savings in water, electricity,
detergents and softeners and labor? But you need to probe deeper to
learn whether the towels and linens contain recycled or virgin fabric
as well as how and where they were made. It’s enough to give even the
most well meaning hotelier pause to consider his or her level of
environmental responsibility.
Dan Gilligan, vice presid-ent of
energy and environ-mental services for Accor North America, doesn’t
consider the hotel industry any different than other industries when it
comes to green washing.
“It’s a marketing issue,” Gilligan
says. “You’ve got a lot of people trying to communi-cate what they
believe is a lot of good news to guests who sometimes don’t have the
ability to weigh how green that information really is. A lot of times
it is words without actions. Then there are those who are portraying
the things they are doing but in reality these are things they should
have been doing all along or have been doing all along.”
Both Taylor and Gilligan agree the diverse nature of
hotels
adds layers of complex-ity to the issue of green wash-ing. On the
surface, a hotel built today that incorporates virtually every
admirable construction practice and operations systems should be
admired. Sure, says Gilligan, but that’s because it’s easier when
beginning from scratch.
“But, if you have an older hotel, you
have even more opportunities to be green,” Gilligan says. “The key is,
are you taking steps, constant steps to improve year over year? What’s
important is that people are showing progress—not just saying they are
great.”
Even today, hotels get criticized for practices that
save money. In an excoriating article for MSNMC.com, National
Geographic Traveler magazine ombudsman Christopher Elliott told readers
in broad brush strokes to be wary of hotels.
“Hotels are
figuratively falling all over themselves to out-green each other,”
Elliott writes. “Most of their efforts look sincere but have a
negligible effect on the environment. So you’re washing fewer towels?
Good for you. That’s not saving the planet — it’s saving you money.
You’re recycling? Nice, but in many places, that’s just following the
law. You installed water-saving showerheads? Great, now can you
convince those Americans who insist on taking two showers a day to cut
back?”
So what’s a well-meaning hotel owner to do in the face of
such backlash? While fraught with its own host of short-comings,
certification appears to be the most viable route. Having a third-party
organization assess a hotel’s environmental programs allows travelers
to make informed decisions based on vetted checklists.
To
date, however, no one program does it all—design and construction,
purchasing, operational processes, among other considerations.
For
the past 14 years, Mark Petruzzi has certified goods and services for
Green Seal, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization working
across a variety of industries. He says Green Seal created a lodging
division as it came to recognize the size and impact of hotels and
resorts on the environment. Green Seal research figures a hotel
annually consumes more than 100 times a typical household. Petruzzi
who, naturally enough, is a firm believer in third-party verification
of green practices and products, is harsher in his views on green
washing than many
others in the industry.
“Probably for
some small percentage, green washing is innocuous and unintentional,
but there is money to be made from identifying yourself as an
environmentally responsible property,” Petruzzi says. “Without anybody
policing it, the burden unfortunately falls to the meeting planners and
the individual travelers to verify. It’s difficult—for example, even if
you were interested, you’d have to find a general manager and ask them,
‘Can you please show me the certificate that shows you purchased 10
percent wind power last year?’”
Petruzzi sees fundamental
differences between hotels and the vendors from who they buy such
products. He sees vendors of paints, electronics, chemicals and
cleaners as more self-policing. “These competitors are not going to let
a competitor get away with marketing claims that are not necessarily
true,” he says. “On the product side, we have retailers paying more
attent-ion because they know their customers are interested so they are
more judicious about green claims of products they put on their
shelves.
“But amongst the hotels, everybody is saying green
things, but it’s rare that you have one hotel company doing a press
release about taking another to task over something,” Petruzzi
continues. “You don’t see Kimpton Hotels saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute,
you’re not actually doing that—we’ve been to your property and we know
you’re not recycling. There’s no self-policing. So, it falls to these
third-party green rating programs, but unfortunately, there are so many
of them.”
Which is to say, the hotel industry is only in the
early phases of a shake-out period for how it pursues environ-mental
management and sustainability. How the indus-try avoids negative
headlines in the meantime will turn on basic common sense: Avoid green
washing by keeping your marketing claims within legitimate boundaries. n
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Getting Certified
AH&LA
is working with leading organizations to offer a variety of green
certification opportunities that will meet the diverse needs of
industry members for develop-ing environmentally friendly and
sustainable hotel properties. AH&LA recommends the following
organizations.
n
Going Green: The Prince of Wales Foundation International Tourism
Partnership (ITP) program is a primer and an excellent starter program
to develop energy, water, and waste conservation programs. www.tourismpartnership.org
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Green Key: The Canadian Hotel Association program is a graduated
rating system recognizing hotels, motels and resorts that are committed
to improving their fiscal and environmental performance. www.hacgreenhotels.com
n Green Globe: Specific to
hospitality,
this international benchmarking and certification program is based
on the Agenda 21 principles of Sustainable Development. www.greenglobe.org
n
Green Globes: The Green Building Initiative’s program includes an
assessment protocol, rating system and guide for integrating
environmentally-friendly design into commercial buildings. www.greenglobes.com
n Green Seal: A science-based nonprofit organization that focuses on developing environmental standards. www.greenseal.org
n
LEED: The U.S. Green Building Council’s four-level certification
program encompassing design techniques, as well as operational
techniques. www.usgbc.org
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