National and international hotel/hospitality associations and consortia
Tour operators
CH2M Hill
NGO’s and agencies (E.g. Conservation International, WWF-UK, & others)
Government and public authorities in Brasil, UK, Caribbean
UNEP
Aims/Objectives:
The International Hotels Environment Initiative was set up by the hotel industry to encourage continuous improvement in the environmental performance of the hotel industry worldwide.
Travel and tourism forms the largest and fastest-growing industry in the world, with hotels at the very core of its activity. Hotels are also the most resource intensive buildings after hospitals. IHEI was established to mobilise hotels to minimise their footprint and resource consumption and to maximise the positive impact they can have through their supply chains, in their communities and in their own operations.
The Initiative provides a non-competitive platform through which hotel groups share information and pool resources to raise environmental awareness and provide guidance to the wider hotel industry, tour operators, government bodies, the media, academia and hotel industry suppliers.
Measurable results and specific
targets:
IHEI’s funding members represent over 11,000 hotels and 1.9 million hotel rooms. The initiative has worked in 111 countries, successfully raising awareness of the business benefits of good environmental practice by hotels and stimulating the creation of regional and local initiatives from New Zealand, Abu Dhabi, Israel and Europe to Brasil, Canada and the Caribbean.
The initiative has produced a range of practical, self-help tools for the industry, some of which have been adapted or translated into 12 or more versions.
Key challenges for the industry include measurement and benchmarking of it’s environmental performance internationally, and the development of guidelines for responsible hotel siting, design and construction.
Implementation mechanisms
and further application:
In Sept 2001 IHEI and WWF-UK launched http:// www.benchmarkhotel.com, an Internet based environmental benchmarking system which for the first time allows hotels to measure and compare their performance across a range of issues with hotels with similar facilities in similar climate zones. Areas covered include water and energy consumption, waste-water quality, waste reduction, purchasing and chemical usage, community and biodiversity impacts. Data entered by growing numbers of hotels around the world will enable IHEI to refine the system’s categories to reflect specific regions or hotel brands, for example.
IHEI is working with the Global Reporting Initiative and the Tour Operators Initiative to incorporate the benchmarking system into their work on industry indicators.
The initiative is also working with the UK government’s sustainable tourism initiative to further develop benchmarks for the social aspects of corporate responsibility.
Conservation International has granted IHEI start-up funding to begin the development of guidelines for responsible hotel siting, design and construction. These will be developed through stakeholder consultation and over the next 2 years, IHEI will build a programme of awareness raising amongst hotel financiers, operators and planning authorities to support the adoption of the guidelines internationally.
CONTACT:
Name:
IHEI
Email:
info@ihei.org
Organisation:
The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF)
