By Katherine Price, Sustainability Editor, H&C News: Sustainability is the new luxury.
Photo credit: Whatley Manor hotel, by Reto Guntli.
Is it difficult to align the expectations of luxury hospitality guests with environmental goals?
“Not at all,” says Sue Williams, general manager of Whatley Manor hotel.
“You can absolutely do it in a stylish way, and it’s a brand piece. It’s saying, ‘we care, we’re trying to do the right thing’. All we get from guests is that they commend us for what we’re doing, and they love those touches.”
In early 2019, Whatley’s owners committed to transform how the hotel operates to create a business that would deliver a luxury guest experience while reducing its impact on the planet.
Under Williams’ tenure of the five-red-AA-starred, 23-bedroom property, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, the hotel has achieved EarthCheck bronze accreditation, appointed a sustainability co-ordinator, and Williams herself completed the University of Cambridge’s inaugural Business and Climate Change: Towards Net Zero Emissions course.
Williams says she is hearing from guests that they are seeking out ethical properties when they travel and have chosen to stay at Whatley for that reason.
“For some of them it’s the ethical reasons, with others they want to be seen to be doing the right thing. Either way, it progresses in the right direction and people are buying from and associating with brands that are taking the right steps.”
She has noticed an increasing number of guests arriving in electric vehicles, and the most popular sustainability conversation starter has apparently been the refillable ceramic Molton Brown toiletries.
Although the hotel’s EarthCheck plaque is displayed at the gate so guests see it on arrival, and she says it’s important to have those conversations about what the hotel is doing and why, her approach has been ensuring team members are equipped with the knowledge and understanding to have those in-depth conversations with guests who invite it, rather than drilling the message in a way that may be unwelcome.
You can read about the hotel’s sustainability vision here, which includes targets to achieve net zero emissions for energy use by 2028 and supply chain by 2035.
Companies are coming under increasing pressure to be more sustainable and defend where money is spent to stakeholders – hotels ignore this at their own peril and risk seeing their business custom dwindle away.
Forward-thinking hotel groups are already betting that there are big gains to be had in the leisure side of the market. Starwood Capital is due to bring its sustainable luxury 1 Hotels brand to Mayfair next year, with nine further properties under development across the world.
Raul Leal, chief executive of SH Hotels & Resorts, which operates the 1 Hotels brand, told Forbes earlier this year that that there was a “huge demand” from travellers wanting to “incorporate sustainability into their luxury travel experience”.
But properties must take sustainability seriously or risk being accused of greenwashing.
“Even if you removed the single-use plastics and did all those little creative things around your hotel, the most you can decarbonise your business by is 30%. Where you need to put your time, energy and resource is into wastewater, energy, and supply chain,” says Williams.
She admits it is a “hard journey”, however highlights that accreditation schemes offer tools and templates to support and steer operators.
“It’s a lot of work,” she says, “but if you don’t do it, you’re not going to be relevant in the future”.
The H&C News Sustainability Roundtable, in Partnership with Meiko UK – Talkin’ bout this generation