Energy is a key cost and emissions factor for hotels, resorts, and timeshares, as they are high
energy intensive buildings which operate 24/7. Even though cleaner and more efficient
equipment has made vast improvements, rising temperatures and energy costs require…
Waste is a major problem for hospitality because unlike other carbon emissions categories, waste is primarily driven by human behaviours and so technologies alone cannot solve the challenge. People often focus on reducing waste by looking at how best to dispose of waste i.e., to recycle. But this still traps waste within your operations and costs money! There can be a better way to cut waste from the start…
The Budget announcements of the 9th of May see the Australian government allocating billions of dollars to new and existing renewable and sustainability tech, research, and investments to reduce businesses carbon emissions. Several agencies…
Did you know some of the ways we save energy can actually be counterproductive? Our efforts can escalate costs, increase indirect carbon emissions, and leave us with wasteful practices ‘built in’ to our daily operations in hotel, resort, timeshare, apartments, or self-contained cabins. In our race to reduce carbon it might seem only natural to […]
Responsible tourism is more than minimising your impacts where you travel – it is also about extending the benefits of your trip into the wider community, improving the social, economic, and environmental wellbeing of where you visit. Responsible tourism matters because it helps communities, ecosystems, the tourist, and improves the lives of all involved. Additionally, […]
The greenest hospitality businesses in the world won’t do anyone much good for long if they’re not making money. Talk of sustainability usually (and understandably) revolves around the environment, about waste and conservation. I have written about those topics and will do so again – but not here. This post is about economic sustainability, and […]
It’s easy to get swept up in the promise of technology. It gives us something to fall back on. However much of a mess humanity makes, we can rest easy. Surely efficiency and innovation will save the day in the end, right? On their own, no. I believe in technology, but it is only as a force for good insofar as we choose to make it so.
We in the tourism sector have a responsibility to lead the way on nature restoration. Beautiful places surrounded by glorious forests, beaches, flowers, birdlife, and mountain views understandably draw visitors, yet the consumption of fossil fuels and wasteful use of food and resources by hospitality adds to pollution and depletion of those same natural assets.
Extreme weather events are not abstract, faraway issues. They are in the here and now, with devastating effects on health, wellbeing, and the economy. Although a global trend, in many ways Australia is bearing the brunt. We’re the canary in the coal mine. We all experienced the devastation of bushfires last year (not for the first time) and according to the Climate Council extreme weather could soon be costing the country’s economy $100 billion a year.
There is a great deal of expectation that data can help deliver more sustainable hospitality, but is it relevant, is it fully used? Firms can be awash with data as they monitor food waste, reservations, energy, revenue and comfort levels, to name a few, but do managers and staff have time to study its implications?