Hilton Hits 20% Waste Reduction Two Years Ahead of Schedule

Thank you Nadine Zgonc for sharing!!

Hospitality company Hilton Worldwide has saved $147 million through efficiency projects, and achieved its five-year goal to reduce total waste by 20 percent, two years ahead of schedule.

The company announced the 2011 results from its LightStay sustainability measurement system. Since the introduction of the system, the company has reduced its carbon output by 10.9 percent, waste output by 23.3 percent, energy use by 9.7 percent, and water use by 7.5 percent.

Hilton said is on track to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions by 20 percent, and water consumption by 10 percent.

The company completed the adoption of LightStay across all of its 3,900 properties in 91 countries in 2011 and is now tracking more than 450,000,000 square feet of build space within the system – an amount greater than all the office spaces in New York City and ten times all hotel rooms in Las Vegas.

The company also recently integrated the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative (HCMI) 1.0 methodology spearheaded by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP) and World Travel & Tourism Council into LightStay and can be applied to any of its properties worldwide if requested. As part of the LightStay Meeting Calculator, Hilton Worldwide also can provide customers with real-time data on food, travel and operational practices for any its properties.

Hilton says each of its brands and hotels globally is required to measure and make continual improvements to their overall sustainability results as part of LightStay. To support these efforts, the system includes a ‘social network’ dashboard that allows properties from around the world to ‘neighbor’ one another and share information, dialogue on a topic or compare respective performance.

To date, Hilton Worldwide says it has nearly 2,000 ‘neighbors’ in LightStay and more than 5,000 improvement projects that highlight different approaches to common sustainability challenges. For example, Hilton Americas – Houston Texas converted to using biodiesel as a preferable fuel, allowing the hotel to recycle 14,000 pounds of kitchen oil and divert seven tons of oil-based food waste from landfills. In South America, the DoubleTree Guest Suites by Hilton Paracas Peru uses a wastewater reclamation plant that is independent of the area sewage system and cleans wastewater to a quality that can be used for watering the hotel’s garden areas, and, in Europe, Hilton Malta uses sea water to cool its air conditioning system.

@Bart_King is a freelance writer and communications consultant.