Forget what they tell you about the paperless revolution.
Sure, we’re all logging in more time online than ever before, and operations are increasingly becoming digital affairs, but paper is still an important part of day-to-day business.
At Hotel News Now, for example, we’re up to our eyeballs in the stuff. Where we used to have a conference table, we now have a pile of 8-by-11 sheets with timelines and page breakdowns and press releases and story ideas.
And we’re supposed to be a digital platform?
Basic issues of tidiness notwithstanding, my biggest issue with these stacks of stock comes down to waste. Not only were we printing out way too much paper, but we were also tossing it carelessly into any trash bin we could find.
The practice got so bad, that I eventually stole an empty diaper box from a coworker and placed it next to the printer as a makeshift paper recycling bin.
Now, I won’t claim to be a flag-waving environmentalist. I’ve killed my fair share of trees over the past few months—er, weeks? Days? But I, like anyone else with a semblance of social consciousness, am becoming increasingly aware of the buzzword du jour: sustainability.
The concept is by no means new. Many hotels have been championing certain elements of the cause for decades now. Kimpton, for example, initiated environmental efforts back in 1985, when the word “green” was still slang for money—not a descriptor for the eco-friendly movement it signifies today.
But while many may find “sustainability” synonymous with “environmentally friendly,” it actually implies a more holistic approach to business than a single empty-diaper-box-turned-makeshift-recycling center.
As Hervé Houdré explains in his recently released “Sustainable Hospitality: Sustainable Development in the Hotel Industry” (available for free here), sustainability encompasses a wider-reaching approach to business that maintains a focus on the triple bottom line: profitability, people and the environment.
“The sustainability initiative goes beyond such well-known ideas as reusing guest linens, recycling waste materials, and changing to compact fluorescent lamps,” Houdré says in the report, which was released by Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research. “The strategy also includes community involvement by supporting charities and encouraging employees to volunteer in the community, as well as participating in global award and certification programs.”
Throughout the rest of the paper—which I viewed in its entirety online, I promise!—the author details a successful sustainability program implemented by the Willard InterContinental Washington Hotel. In the process, he provides a veritable road map for sustainable operations for the lodging industry.
At 24 concise pages, the report is certainly worth a quick read.
If nothing else, it will make you forget what they tell you about sustainability.
