More on Marriott’s Recently Released Sustainability Report

By Glenn Hasek
September 04, 2012 06:11

As mentioned on Green Lodging News last week, Marriott International just released its 2011-2012 Sustainability Report. To read a press release summarizing the report, click here. To access the actual report, click here. The 52-page report is divided into three sections: Marriott Business Values, Marriott and the Environment, and Marriott and Society. It is very clear from the report that Marriott takes corporate and social responsibility very seriously and has been doing so for a long time. The report is too long to summarize entirely here but I will point out what I believe are just some of the environmental highlights. Since 2007, Marriott’s Global Green Council has guided its environmental strategy by evaluating its practices, setting long-term goals, developing an environmental strategic plan and catalyzing its progress. At quarterly meetings, this cross-functional team of senior executives applies a sustainability lens to how Marriott thinks about, designs and delivers programs and services enterprisewide.

Marriott has created the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) hotel prototype pre-approved by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for five of its select-service and extended-stay brands. From 2007 to 2011 Marriott reduced water consumption per occupied room by 12 percent and energy consumption per square meter by 4 percent. To help engineering and other property leaders accomplish energy and water reduction goals, Marriott developed Energy and Environmental Action Plans (EEAP), a comprehensive, best practice audit tool. The EEAP covers a range of items from corporate re-use policies to simple best practice behaviors for lighting; appliance; heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC); and central plant conservation and efficiency.

From 2009 to 2011, Marriott decreased pounds of landfill waste per occupied room by 10 percent in the Americas, with a 4.7 percent reduction from 2010 to 2011. In May 2012, Marriott rolled out the Green Hotels Global tool, an online environmental sustainability dashboard (developed and managed by The Carbon Accounting Company). The system collects data and calculates each hotel’s carbon footprint according to new industry guidelines. It also calculates each hotel’s water footprint and waste diversion rate and maintains a comprehensive list of each hotel’s environmental practices. Green Hotels Global is being phased in globally across Marriott’s brands and will be available on Marriott.com by year-end 2012.
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