The role of technology in sustainable hotels
Technology’s role in sustainability has come a long way. Technology has helped monitor and track sustainability data in hotels, created immense opportunity for communicating sustainability information, and allowed sustainability to become more relatable to travelers. The partnership between technology and sustainability has allowed progress to accelerate in the hospitality industry almost to the point of the sector not being able to keep up. Originally, tech in sustainable hospitality was used just to track water and energy usage, for instance for smart HVAC systems. But its potential wasn’t seen mainstream until the last five years or so. Hotels have recognized the tech potential in their sustainability reporting, cost savings, traveler communications, and marketing campaigns. And we have a feeling tech is only just getting started for sustainable hospitality.
Photo by GLP Films
How technology in sustainable hospitality makes a difference
If you’re on your journey to make your hotel as sustainable as possible, then you’ve already seen the difference technology can play in your initiatives. Besides the obvious (albeit incredibly important) tech involved in green infrastructure and renewable energy, using staff-facing tech tools makes all the difference. Being able to monitor, detect, track, and report sustainability data can remove many challenges and costs in your way. Even innovations as simple as keyless entry, where guests can open their doors from their phones instead of a plastic card, can have surprisingly high cost and environmental savings. Having a dashboard for your entire business that accesses all your buildings’ information and data allows you to see big-picture views of how your hotel is operating and where changes can be made to operate more efficiently. A lot of platforms now will collect and analyze your water and energy data over a year period, so that when it’s time to organize data for reporting purposes, you already have the data you need. Companies such as Greenview offer different tools and capabilities for tracking and reporting on sustainability metrics, and the Greenview Portal acts as a comprehensive but easily understood dashboard to collect, track, and report sustainability performance.
Simple retrofitting of water efficiency meters can not only show your operations team water usage, but if and where there are leaks in the system—detecting inefficiencies before larger costs are incurred. Energy retrofitting can work similarly, identifying where there may be AC units that aren’t functioning up to par, or aren’t working at all, so they can be fixed before guests arrive. Smart laundry rooms and guest services can also assist in water and energy usage. Efficiency data, including how many materials and cleaning supplies you use, can give you options to operate more efficiently.
Software for customer relationship management systems, or CRMs, track guests’ preferences and build profiles of their markets, giving detailed insight into anticipating guests needs and requests, such as convenient recycling services and opting out of housekeeping. This kind of information can allow for cost savings and help you reach sustainability goals while also creating loyal guests.
The St. Regis Atlanta hotel incorporated smart technology for sustainability when it was time to renovate, partnering with the company Mode:Green. Equipping rooms with lighting and energy monitoring, an iPad is set up in every room to grant guests full control over their heating, AC, and drapes—which also collects data for hotel management on energy usage. There are easy pre-set options such as “Away” that turns off the lights and adjusts the AC or heating while the guests are out of the room. This is also helpful for housekeeping, tracking when guests are away and the most efficient times to service rooms.
Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) partnered with Winnow to track and measure food waste in their restaurants and bars. Using intelligent cameras, smart scales, and AI-based smart meter technology, they are able to assess the amount of food wasted. With this information, purchase decisions can be tailored to save money and develop menus where less will be wasted. Minimizing food waste is a challenging sustainability issue for hotels, but technology, such as what Winnow provides, can greatly help overcome barriers.
Photo by GLP Films
Unique opportunities technology has for communicating with visitors and your community
While the smart phones we carry around with us offer more connection and communication capability than ever in the history of humanity, there are even greater ways to leverage that benefit to communicate sustainability to your guests. Since virtual learning has taken off during the pandemic, having a self-guided tour of your sustainability initiatives has helped some hotels market their journey beyond what is written on their websites. Like St. Regis Atlanta above, hotels that provide tablets in guest rooms for energy and efficiency purposes could also utilize those devices to share valuable sustainability resources, such as maps to the closest bike-share stations, or restaurants with sustainable sourcing efforts. A unique offering of the Athens Plaza Hotel is the Press Reader service, a completely digital application that provides access to thousands of global magazines in over 60 languages. This inclusive idea has led to a decrease in paper consumption and guests love the added benefit.
As storytelling is an incredibly important aspect of marketing sustainability in hotels, technology undoubtedly plays a significant role when looking at the big picture. We’ve been able to reach audiences like never before and being transparent in sustainability efforts has become increasingly important. Technology hasn’t just made sustainable storytelling more accessible, it’s also made it inclusive. You can communicate with a larger, more diverse range of guests and community members, and showcase how your efforts are having a positive impact on local livelihoods, guest experiences, and caring for the environment.