Five More Hotel Cos. Join HRS’ Green Stay Initiative

Corporate lodging platform HRS has added five new partners to its Green Stay Initiative, the company announced: NH Hotel Group, Leonardo Hotels, Indian Hotels Co., Camino Real Hotels and Intercity Hotels of Brazil.

HRS’ Green Stay Initiative, launched in March, uses a proprietary formula to give participating hotels in its inventory a sustainability score that takes into account a property’s energy consumption, water use and waste disposal. Several chains, including Marriott International and Accor, previously had announced their participation.

Indian Hotels Co. brands include Taj, SeleQtions and Vivanta. The company, which operates hotels in 11 countries, aims to put its entire portfolio of more than 100 hotels through the Green Stay Initiative, according to a company spokesperson.

NH Hotel Group, headquartered in Spain, operates multiple brands across 31 countries in Europe and the Americas. Leonardo Hotels, headquartered in Berlin, has about 84 properties in eight European countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain and Italy. Both NH Hotel Group and Leonardo Hotels plan to put all their brands through the initiative, according to HRS.

Camino Real Hotels operates 33 hotels in 22 destinations in Mexico. Intercity Hotels lists 41 properties available in Brazil.

BTN this month recognized HRS CEO Tobias Ragge as one of the 25 Most Influential individuals of 2021 based on the development of the Green Stay Initiative.

“This is a change for the future,” Ragge said. “It’s as meaningful to our industry as the invention of the internet, and it is going to be as impactful.”

Participation Factors

Accor joined the initiative in part because the “methodology aligns with the dominant and emerging industry reporting frameworks”—citing the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative and Hotel Water Measurement Initiative metrics developed in part by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance—”enabling consistent comparisons and benchmarking of hotels within a specific geographic area,” wrote Accor SVP of sales and distribution Markus Keller in an email.

Similarly, Marriott noted that HRS was leveraging industry methodologies, such as the HCMI and HWMI, and that its “effort is rooted in metrics,” said Marriott VP of sustainability and supplier diversity Denise Naguib.

Both hotel companies also noted a significant increase in interest in sustainability measurements from the corporate travel community. “Customers have requested sustainability information before, but over the last 12 months, the requests have intensified, and it would be fair to say at least doubled,” Keller wrote. “There is more senior-level focus on [environmental, social and corporate governance] compliance, and this has filtered to travel managers expressing their companies’ requirements and expectations.”

Ragge added that HRS aims to be a facilitator of sustainability information and to bring the efforts being undertaken by the hotel industry to the travel buyer community. “Let’s not forget that only 25 percent [of hotels] are chain-affiliated,” he said. “People are overwhelmed with the complexity of this topic.”

All of Marriott’s brands are participating, except for Homes & Villas, Naguib said, adding that additions from the company’s roughly 7,900 global properties to the HRS system are ongoing. To date, nearly 2,000 Accor hotels from more than 75 countries have been onboarded on the Green Stay Initiative. “This number will be extended further in the new year with the completion of an enhanced hotel reporting program,” Keller added.

Donna M. Airoldi  www.businesstravelnews.com