With many trends often coming and going, I’m pleased that sustainability is one that’s not become stuck but is continuing to grow, driven by the consumer.
A survey conducted in 2021 revealed 81% of travelers plan to choose sustainable accommodation options and are willing to pay a premium for them.
For the hotel industry, sustainability is not just the right thing to do, it’s what our guests want, too.
Developers can make a significant impact on sustainability through strategic hotel development. The built environment is responsible for a large portion of global carbon emissions, estimated to be around two-thirds of the total emissions based on a 50-year life cycle analysis.
Hotels do contribute to this problem.
While new builds can incorporate less energy-intensive solutions from the start, existing buildings can also be retrofitted to reduce their carbon impact. Measures such as installing heat pumps, improving metering and control systems and having more efficient air-conditioning systems can significantly enhance hotel energy efficiency.
At EasyHotel, we have recently announced a £4.5 million ($5.7 million) investment to implement these changes by 2025 across the bulk of our United Kingdom hotels.
Other developers may focus on water conservation through low-flow showerheads and toilets or adopt smart appliances such as programmable thermostats to reduce energy consumption.
These changes have minimal impact on consumers but can have a considerable effect on energy costs and outputs, leading to savings for both the hotel and the guest.
Another effective strategy for reducing carbon emissions is maximizing the use of available space and eliminating unnecessary or redundant areas. Value brands with compact rooms naturally lend themselves to lower carbon emissions, with less materials used in the construction and less energy needed to heat and cool rooms.
Traditionally, hotels have included breakfast rooms that are only used in the morning, resulting in inefficient use of space. However, innovative hotel developers now are optimizing usage of such spaces by opening the space to co-working or partnering with local food establishments to use the restaurant area throughout the rest of the day.
This approach aligns with evolving consumer preferences for more experiential stays or more space for an increasingly remote workforce. In the case of EasyHotel, we have chosen not to have breakfast rooms or restaurants in most of our locations, offering a simple and clutter-free stay without underutilized spaces.
Instead, we encourage our guests to explore the surrounding city and enjoy local food and beverage establishments.
In locations where breakfast is such an important part of the hotel experience, we provide a single-use-plastic-free breakfast and work with local businesses that can use our restaurant space once breakfast is over.
Single-use plastic has traditionally been found at most stages of the guest journey in hotels. Just as with our breakfast, we’ve removed it from other parts of the guest journey in the hotel.
The era of small toiletry bottles is coming to an end, as hotels around the world are transitioning to larger, refillable bottles to be more eco-friendly. Some regions have even enacted laws to ban small toiletry bottles, with New York and California being notable examples.
In New York alone, the elimination of these bottles was expected to save a staggering 27.4 million bottles annually.
The trend of the reusable water bottle is a great example of consumers driving change. On the back of this, we’ve removed all plastic water bottles from our hotels and have installed water fountains. We welcome both our own guests and members of the public to fill their bottles with us for free.
We have also replaced plastic key cards with wooden ones, preventing the production of 55,000 plastic key cards for the group in 2023.
While these changes may seem small on their own, their cumulative impact on reducing a hotel’s carbon emissions is significant.
By working together, hotel developers, operators and consumers can create an enjoyable experience while actively contributing to lowering carbon emissions and protecting the environment.
Working with tools such as the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor, and its decarbonization pathway, helps provide the necessary tools and guidance to improve energy efficiency even further.
Simplicity plays a key role in this endeavor.
By adopting low-carbon strategies that simplify hotel operations and eliminate wasteful practices, we not only reduce our environmental impact but also provide savings for our customers.
Streamlining our offerings, utilizing space efficiently and transitioning away from single-use plastics not only align with our sustainability goals but also contributes to a more cost-effective operations and resonates with our guests who are more driven than ever before in their sustainable choices.
As the CEO of a low-budget hotel chain, I am proud to be part of the charge in implementing these low-carbon strategies, ensuring that sustainability and consumer satisfaction go hand in hand in the hospitality industry.
Karim Malak is CEO of hotel brand EasyHotel, which has 43 properties in 11 European countries. Twenty-one are in the U.K.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.