The International Tourism Partnership has prepared a range of "Know How Guides" within the field of sustainability. The guides can be found on the Green Hotelier website as free resources
As part of the International Tourism Partnership, a charitable membership organisation working with leading hotel groups for increased sustainability in the industry, it is part of their remit to help all hoteliers around the world improve their social and environmental programmes as responsible businesses.
To that end, the industry leading manuals Environmental Management for Hotels and Sustainable Siting, Construction and Design remain completely free to download, and hoteliers can frequently find great tips and advice from their peers via the Industry Leader interviews and our Best Practice Case Studies.
But the "Know How Guides" are consistently the most visited pages, so here is an overview of the top ten most popular "Know How Guides" on the Green Hotelier website.
10. Environmental Awareness and Training
A company can have the most ambitious environmental policy, but unless staff understand the philosophy behind it, the goals they are aiming for and how to achieve them, it will not be successful. Good intentions are undermined through poor training. This guide offers simple steps to raising staff awareness of sustainability issues and how to incorporate it into the training regime.
9. Addressing Human Trafficking in the Hospitality Industry
The sector is becoming increasingly aware of the risk of human trafficking and the responsibilities to reduce it. The Know How Guide was updated this year and it offers a comprehensive run down of the issue and how to tackle it.
8. Sourcing Sustainable Food in Hotels
Guests are increasingly aware of food provenance and often have a desire to consume more responsibly so the supply chains are under more scrutiny than ever. This guide examines why more hotels are switching to sustainable food policies and walks you through how to create a policy of your own.
7. Sustainable Interior Design
“As consumers become more environmentally and socially aware about the choices they make so hoteliers are responding by creating eco-aware hotel interiors that they hope will attract a new generation of responsible guests.” When Green Hotelier originally posted this Guide back in 2011, guests making responsible travel choices was a pretty new thing. Nowadays whole brands are built around the idea that tourists want to reduce their negative impact when travelling. Want to understand the guiding principles to sustainable interior design? This one’s for you.
6. Environmental Management for Hotels
Not actually one of the "Know How Guides", but this industry-leading manual still stands out for its practical advice. Ten downloadable chapters provide hotels and related businesses with the knowledge and means to develop practical solutions to 'green' their operations both inside and out. Everything you ever needed to know at your fingertips.
5. Furniture, Fixtures and Fittings
All furniture, fixtures and fittings have socio-economic and environmental impacts associated with their manufacture, use and disposal. By considering these issues as part of the purchasing process, the overall environmental impact can be readily used and make a positive contribution to sustainability. This Guide outlines the issue and all the reasons why a hotel might seek to source sustainable furniture, fixtures and fittings.
4. Energy Efficiency in the Kitchen
Aside from HVAC, the kitchen is probably a hotel’s most energy hungry utility, so striving for greater efficiency is not only good for the environment, it makes good business sense too. Start off by measuring the energy use (Green Hotelier built a tool for that – it’s also free!) and then use this guide to find all the ways you can drive that carbon footprint down in the kitchen.
3. Simple steps to reducing energy
Everyone talks about ‘low-hanging fruit’ when it comes to making energy savings, but if you are just setting out on your sustainability journey, it can be hard to know where to start. This short article is not actually a "Know How Guide" but its popularity with the readers shows that when people need help getting started, it sometimes pays to start small. To better understand how the hotel’s energy use checks out compared with the average for the destination, why not do a quick benchmark comparison using the Hotel Footprints website?
2. Water Management and Responsibility in Hotels
Increasingly, water stewardship is being seen as the number one issue hotels need to tackle, particularly in water stressed areas where guests may be using up to ten times the daily amount of water that is typical for local people. It is really essential that hotels understand their water use, measure it (Green Hotelier built a free tool for that too!) and then work to reduce it. ITP worked with SIWI to better understand the water risk issues for hotels and you can read the Water Risk Assessment report here. Then use this Guide to take steps to manage consumption in the property.
1. Reducing and Managing Food Waste in Hotels
And – drumroll please – the most popular "Know How Guide" in 2016 was this look at the issue of food waste and how to cut back on those bins going off to landfill. In an unequal world where many do not have enough to eat, food waste is a hot topic for hoteliers to grapple with. Plus it just makes no business sense to pay to throw away food due to poor stock management or that could be put to better use in a new dish. If a hotel needs a better handle on its food waste, the Guide gives you a handy action plan for tackling this meaty problem.
Do not forget this is not the complete list of the many useful Know How Guides in Green Hotelier, so do check out other pages and other handy free resources.
Source and acknowledgement: Green Hotelier