The ‘value’ of sustainability for the hotel sector 2013

This review of five of the leading hotel company sustainability strategies, addresses some of the complex challenges that global hotel operators are now facing.
This report is published at a time when global hotel companies are experiencing growing public scrutiny and interest in their sustainability and corporate responsibility practices and performance. This review of sustainability within the five leading hotel companies addresses some of the complex challenges that global hotel operators are now facing in managing different stakeholder interests, whilst at the same time attempting to add value to the hotel brands in terms of legitimacy, reputation and integrity. The report offers a convincing review of how the companies are demonstrating innovative ‘best practice’ in relation to sustainability. It highlights the scale of the task of managing different stakeholder interests and cautions against the dangers of Greenwash for the hotel companies..

The report’s ‘Sustainability Map’, includes a summary of examples of the different companies ‘best practice’, and offers a persuasive overview of the extent to which the hotel companies address their stakeholder commitments. The review also signals the emerging question of the impact that sustainability has on hotel property values. What emerges from the report is a genuine commitment on the part of all the hotel companies to manage sustainability, and that sustainability it has now become an important element of their business and brand strategies.

Dr Guy Bohane

Senior Lecturer in Management Ethics,

University of Roehampton Business School, London November 2012