Environmental sustainability specialist, Greengage Solutions, has found that hotels and meeting venues are accelerating their sustainability efforts in response to customer demand.
Greengage has analysed searches conducted on its ECOsmart database of hundreds of accredited venues and compared them to searches in 2022. It found significantly more searches for venues with a sustainability policy or plan. Increasingly bookers will not even shortlist venues without established sustainability policies or plans.
Greengage has identified five key trends from analysing the searches made on its ECOsmart database:
- Energy monitoring – unsurprisingly given the big energy price increases in the past 18 months, over 80% of ECOsmart venues are actively monitoring their energy usage and devising plans to reduce usage wherever possible.
- Water usage – just like energy, venues are realising that water is an expensive commodity. And many more organisations are now looking at how they can reduce their water usage without affecting customer satisfaction.
- More EV chargers – with 17% of vehicles now being electric, there is a greater demand for EV chargers especially for large events.
- Social welfare – bookers are increasingly considering how well venues look after their staff and contribute to their local community. For example, many venues are reducing food waste by offering excess food to staff to take home or donating it to local good causes.