Making Sustainability Feel at Home
Environmental Stewardship Transforms Hospitality Industry
How do you tackle drought restrictions in a California hotel? You cut water usage in half—and then engage tenants and the wider community in your efforts. And that’s exactly what Hersha Hospitality Trust (Hersha Hospitality), a real estate investment trust that owns and operates 56 upscale hotels in multiple urban gateway markets, has done. Since 2009, Hersha Hospitality has set a high standard for sustainable practices in the industry with its comprehensive EarthView® initiative. EarthView is a unique program dedicated to sustainable hospitality and is quickly becoming the industry’s benchmark for fully integrated environmental and community policies.
The business model at Hersha Hospitality is unique in that both the ownership team and the management team collaborate closely on their sustainability endeavors. Take, for example, Dave Campbell, the Director of Engineering at the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego, and Bennett Thomas, the Senior Vice President of Finance and Sustainability at Hersha Hospitality. Starting on separate paths, they eventually came together as “sustainability allies,” each determined to transform the hospitality industry through environmental stewardship.
Sustainable Hospitality
Led by Thomas, who joined Hersha Hospitality in 2007, the EarthView program has bolstered sustainability conscientiousness and conservation practices across all of Hersha Hospitality’s independent lifestyle, luxury and upscale hotels, which are located in major markets, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego. EarthView’s cross-functional team works within the open-forum program to cultivate new concepts for sustainable hospitality.
This initiative is quickly becoming the gold standard for sustainable hospitality practices in the industry, says Thomas. “We know our guests care about the environment and want to do their part to help,” he adds. “And EarthView provides a way for guests to make a tangible difference. EarthView enhances guests’ experiences by delivering environmental and conservation programs that improve the well-being of guests, employees, communities and the planet.”
“Focusing on sustainability not only aligns with our company’s core values, but it is also a strategic move. Sustainability and financial success are not mutually exclusive–you can run a profitable business and be environmentally conscious at the same time. EarthView is proving to be a win-win for all of our stakeholders, including guests, employees and shareholders,” says Thomas.
Campbell and Thomas joined forces in 2013 when the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego joined the Hersha Hospitality portfolio. “It has been a great experience working with Dave and seeing his leadership not only at the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego but also his influence at additional properties in our West Coast region. I often reference Dave and his San Diego team as the prime model of sustainable operations on our properties.”
Extraordinary Achievements
“Without corporate sponsorship and backing, EarthView and our sustainability measures would have been hard to achieve,” says Campbell. “But we did it. We proved that our industry could be sustainable; we’re making a difference.”
Campbell, a Coleman University graduate and U.S. Army veteran (he was a helicopter crew chief/door gunner), is a certified LEED Green Associate who holds Level II Building Operator Certification from the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council. For years, he’s spent much of his time thinking outside of the box to solve one of the industry’s biggest challenges: sustainability.
Due to his five-year plan to meet a set of aggressive sustainability goals at the historic Courtyard by Marriott San Diego—built in 1928 and previously home to the San Diego Trust and Savings Bank building before it was converted to a hotel in 1999—the iconic landmark now serves as a noteworthy example of adaptive reuse done right. In June 2016, Campbell won a prestigious EBie Award from the Urban Green Council for this effort; he has also overseen several additional retrofit projects throughout San Diego.
The key to changing the sustainability of any industry, Campbell says, is to have a goal, work as a team, and be consistent. His advocacy of sustainability in the hospitality industry really came to fruition in 2011, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started its Battle of the Buildings program, which allows organizations across the country to compete to reduce energy and water use over the competition period. At the time, Campbell was the Chief Engineer at the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego.
So when Campbell mentioned during our interview that he was “invested in sustainability not only because it was the right thing to do, but because the hotel’s leadership and [he] very much wanted to win the EPA’s biggest loser contest,” I was shocked. Did the hotel’s leadership really care that much about sustainability? And how could this man combat waste in the stereotypically indulgent hospitality industry?
The hospitality industry’s customer experience is largely predicated on waste—waste of water, of electricity, of soap. “Waste is the name of the game,” he adds with a laugh. “Hospitality and sustainability seem like an oxymoron,” he explains. “Think about it. When you use a hotel, you leave the lights on. You run the shower longer. You wash your sheets every night. You wouldn’t do any of that at home!”
But Campbell took extraordinary steps to reduce waste, water, and energy consumption, including testing water-reducing devices.
“Through this campaign—supported by our hotels, corporate offices, and thousands of guests nationwide—we were able to donate over $100,000 to support autism research and awareness efforts.” Bennett Thomas, Senior Vice President of Finance and Sustainability, Hersha Hospitality Trust
“The customers didn’t even notice a difference!” he shares. “At first, my attention was primarily focused on lowering water usage because of California’s drought. Once I saw that we were making such a dramatic difference in our conservation efforts, it became fun. Then I asked myself, ‘How can we reduce more?’” Other actions that he took involved:
• Re-landscaping the hotel property with drought-tolerant and native species of plants
• Replacing all existing light bulbs with high-efficiency alternatives
• Upgrading commercial laundry equipment
• Training the housekeeping staff on best practices to consistently reduce water and energy usage
• Creating “Green Teams” to monitor and improve sustainability results throughout the hotel
By far, Cambell says, his most impressive feat has been creating the inter-departmental Green Teams to investigate and develop energy and water-saving measures. “Each department has its own Green Team,” says Campbell. “These teams come together on a semi-regular basis to discuss their ideas and implement them in their departments. For example, the housekeeping staff devised a strategy to use less water when they cleaned the bathrooms. We tested the method and it worked! We save a tremendous amount of water each year just by using less water while cleaning.”
Doing Well by Doing Good
Since EarthView was implemented seven years ago, and across its U.S. portfolio, it is estimated that the program has:
• Saved more than 57 million gallons of water (350,000 gallons of water in California alone)
• Reduced carbon emissions by 16 percent
• Reduced waste by 45 percent (or 150,000 cubic yards)
Hersha Hospitality also demonstrates its care for communities by supporting more than 115 charitable organizations. One great example is the company’s partnership with Clean the World, a nonprofit that collects and recycles soap and hygiene products discarded by the hospitality industry. The soap is sanitized and distributed internationally to impoverished people, preventing hygiene-related deaths estimated in the millions each year, reducing the morbidity rate for hygiene-related illnesses, and encouraging healthy childhood development.
Hersha Hospitality has also initiated an EarthView-branded water program that helps to support clean water projects globally.
And in 2015, Hersha Hospitality launched an autism awareness campaign in collaboration with Autism Speaks. “Through this campaign–supported by our hotels, corporate offices, and thousands of guests nationwide–we were able to donate over $100,000 to support autism research and awareness efforts,” says Thomas.
In 2015, for the third time in four years, Hersha Hospitality was awarded the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trust’s Lodging & Resorts “Leader in the Light Award”, in recognition of superior portfolio-wide energy use practices and sustainability initiatives. Also in 2015, eight of Hersha Hospitality’s hotels received the EPA’s ENERGY STAR Certification, meaning they used 35 percent less energy and generated 35 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than similar businesses in the nation.
So what can Hersha Hospitality teach us about sustainability? “We’re showing that doing well by doing good is possible, especially when you are blessed to be a part of such a terrific team,” says Thomas.