Hotel Companies Show Progress on Greener Emissions Accountability: New Skift Research

Environmental sustainability is becoming more important to companies, governments, and travelers alike. No news there. But how are hotel companies responding to the changing demands and increased scrutiny around environmental reporting and emission reduction requirements?

More and more companies file reports on their environmental targets and performance with the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project). In a new report by Skift Research, entitled Progress in Sustainability: Hotel Company Analysis 2023, we weed through tons of CDP and company filings to report on the state of sustainability targets, reporting, and emission abatement at the largest hotel companies.

The report covers the largest hotel companies by room portfolio: Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Accor, InterContinental Hotels Group, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. We would have liked to include Choice Hotels in this analysis, but the company does not report extensively on its sustainability efforts, and does not file any reports with the CDP.

We found that most of the largest hotel companies have now set or submitted science-based targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This is an improvement over just a few years ago, which is a positive sign, although there are still some laggards

As you can read in the report, our analysis found that the Covid pandemic has been a major distorter of performance, but on the whole companies seem on target for their emissions reduction for now, although there is still a long way of emission abatements to go.

In the report we dive deep into the different greenhouse gas scopes and targets, and provide a comparison of performance per occupied room.

What You’ll Learn From This Report

• Prevalence of science-based targets in the travel and hospitality industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• What targets the largest hotel companies have set, and if they are meeting these targets
• Emissions per occupied room for largest 5 hotel companies, and how this has evolved over time
• How scope 3 reporting has improved, but how a continued focus is needed

This is the latest in a series of reports and data products that Skift Research puts out to help you analyze the biggest trends in the travel industry. Tap into the opinions and insights of our seasoned network of staffers and contributors. More than 200 hours of desk research, data collection, and/or analysis goes into each report.

By subscribing to Skift Research, you will gain access to our entire vault of reports conducted on topics ranging from technology to marketing strategy to deep dives on key travel brands. You will also be able to access our proprietary Skift Travel Health Index, Skift Travel Company Tracker, Hotel Tech Benchmark, and data from our regular traveler surveys.

Progress in Sustainability: Hotel Company Analysis 2023

We’ve covered the environmental performance of hotel companies before, but that research was due an update. Much has happened in the world, and – probably unrelated – hotel companies have become better at setting emission reduction targets and reporting of current performance. Let’s continue that trend.

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