Hotels’ energy, water usage decreased for ninth year in a row: Cornell study

Dive Brief:

For the ninth consecutive year, the annual Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Index found a general decrease in energy and water usage among participating hotels. The report is an update to the CHSB2021 report, which was published with data from 2019.
A total of 25,576 hotels from 31 international hotel groups participated in the study, including Accor, Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International, each providing data on their water and energy use in 2021. Around 50% of the data set comes from hotels in the U.S.
Researchers credit low occupancy rates and hotel closures due to the pandemic as the major reasons for the year’s decreased energy and water consumption. But the findings also show that upper-upscale hotels outperformed luxury, upscale and upper-midscale hotels in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption, showing that high-end hotels can prioritize sustainability performance without sacrificing quality of service or guest experience.

Dive Insight:

With fewer guests during the pandemic, the Cornell researchers concluded, there was less demand for energy-consuming amenities such as heating, cooling, lighting and other electrical appliances. Additionally, hotels may have implemented energy conservation measures to reduce costs during this period of low revenue.

The findings report a “notable decrease” across all participating hotels in greenhouse gas emissions per square meter and energy consumption per square meter, with weighted average changes showing a decline of 27.81% in emissions per square meter and a drop of 23.29% in energy consumption per square meter. (The weighted average change is calculated by multiplying the average change of a particular hotel category by the percentage of that hotel’s floor area to the total floor area of the data set.)

Non-resorts had the highest reductions in both GHG emissions and energy consumption, with overall average changes of -32.62% for emissions and -27.16% for consumption. Full-service resorts had the smallest reductions, with overall average changes of -23.61% for GHG emissions and -19.16% for energy consumption.

The report noted what it called a “worrisome trend,” though: the average change in water usage per occupied room increased by 9.94% across all hotels. Full-service resorts had the highest increase in water usage (23.74%), and these larger hotels have a more substantial impact on the average results than other sub-categories of hotels.

Researchers hypothesize that this increase in water usage may be credited to the need by some hotels to flush their water systems more frequently in order to maintain water quality due to stagnation because of low occupancy rates and closures. Plus, some hotels may have implemented enhanced cleaning and sanitation procedures due to the pandemic. This could include more frequent washing of linens, towels and surfaces, as well as more frequent handwashing by staff.

Within market segments, upper-upscale hotels outperformed luxury, upscale and upper-midscale hotels in terms of reducing GHG emissions and energy consumption. Luxury hotels had the smallest decrease in weighted average change for GHG emissions per square meter at 3.14%, while upper-upscale hotels had the highest decrease at 11.09%. Similarly, for energy per square meter, luxury hotels had the smallest decrease in weighted average change at 3.03%, whereas upper-upscale hotels had the highest decrease at 9.85%.

Even though upper-upscale hotels are typically associated with high-end amenities, suggesting that they consume more energy and produce more GHG emissions than their lower-tier counterparts, researchers conclude that these figures demonstrate that it is possible to prioritize sustainability without sacrificing service.