CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE
Best Western is the number one hotel brand in the world with more than 4,000 establishments. In France, Best Western is also the first chain in terms of eco-certified hotels with more than 55 certified hotels out of a total of 315. In the framework of its sustainable development strategy, the company has implemented an innovative system of environmental labelling of stays, transparently communicating the impact of hotels on the environment.
IMPACT
The label is communicated transparently and on a scale that compares the hotel average with that of an average consumer in France.
DESCRIPTION OF INITIATIVE
In 2013, the chain introduced an innovation in the hotel industry, as the first chain to use environmental labelling as a network. This label was created at the instigation of the French Ministry of Sustainable Development, with the objective of providing, for each customer, for each product and service, a transparent understanding of the environmental impact of their behaviour.
To obtain the label, the hotel takes an inventory of all the equipment, food, laundry, water flows and disposables used by the hotel over the course of a year, and then calculates the impacts in terms of primary energy (kWh), water (L), waste (grams), Co2 (kg), organic or certified products (% of the total quantity). This inventory first provides unprecedented economic and environmental knowledge for the management of an establishment, which can plan actions based on this analysis and visualize the effects (for example in terms of energy and euros saved. ). For the client, the annual impacts mentioned are divided by the number of nights to provide an average of their overall environmental impact during their stay. This data is communicated transparently and on a scale that compares the hotel average with that of an average consumer in France.
QUICK FACTS
- Organisation: Best western
- City: Global
- Type of provider: Hotel
- Circular principle: Design out waste and pollution
- Focus: Reduce
- Keywords: #label #communication