Essay Example on Sustainability in the Hotel Industry: Protecting Environment, Creating Jobs

In the recent past, sustainability is one of the issues that every industry has been aiming to achieve with its products and services. The phenomenon aims at ensuring that all the waste produced during any activity is put to good use. Additionally, it entails recycling water and energy to ensure that other industries can use it to grow while creating job opportunities. In the hotel industry, it ensures that the hotels protect the natural environment around them and that they promote economic and social equity through improving the lives of the people they serve. The hospitality industry is tasked with offering practical solutions that result in economic growth (Duweke et al., 2016). However, the market ought to examine how it interprets this phenomenon to ensure that there are concrete results. Therefore, any business coming up in this industry must consider practical methods of creating value for their products as well as their waste for them to achieve sustainability.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

With the growing scarcity in business resources, businesses are working to ensure that all their departments keep up with the needs of their target customers. Commitment to sustainability is now a concept that entities are using to increase their competitive advantage. This is because it will enable them to achieve their objectives as well as maintain the health of the industry at a low operating cost. The industry, however, faces challenges such as high operating costs, slow growth, employee retention and the recruitment of a younger labor force. This means that the businesses in the hospitality sector have to ensure that they have a corporate outlook if they are to commit to the issues of sustainability (Tyrimos et al., 2014). Hence, adopting a corporate appearance is one of the ways that any firm in the hospitality industry can improve its sustainability efforts.

The current global setting is such that most millennials and Generation Z customers are seeking for companies that make sustainability efforts in their production. Social consciousness is integral since it shows that a business is in touch with the needs of their clients and their immediate environment. According to the Nielsen Company, any brand that is socially conscious and committed to sustainability is likely to succeed and register a 4% growth in their activities as opposed to the products that do not aim at creating a pleasant environment in their production activities. Since 1993, there has been a 23% increase in the clients that are seeking for businesses that promote sustainability in their actions (Prigge, 2017). Therefore, any enterprise in the restaurant industry must consider these statistics as they embark on their production and activities.

Sustainability is also crucial since it helps in recruiting the best workers within and outside the industry. Consequently, it increases employee engagement as people seek to brainstorm on ideas about how to establish cost-saving and efficient ways to enlarge their businesses. For businesses in the restaurant industry to achieve their goals, they must look for alternative ways to promote employee sustainability. One of the ways to accomplish this is by committing to environment and market responsibility (Rosa & Silva, 2017). This boosts the morale of the employees since they feel that they are a part of something that has a global impact. Consequently, it motivates them to stay in the company and in the industry to be part of the significant changes that sustainability aims at achieving.

Achieving sustainability also entails identifying the key areas that need to change in the restaurant industry. This allows for the development of sustainability matrices that guide energy and water usage. Similarly, greenhouse emissions can be monitored using the new model and adjustments can be made depending on the results obtained. To achieve this, indicators have to be used to ensure that restaurants can benchmark from each other's performance while understanding the number of resources used that can be used to reduce the carbon footprint and wastage. Consequently, companies can develop benchmarks and baselines to gauge their performances and where they currently stand in the industry (Prigge, 2017). Thus, the restaurant industry can create sustainability by identifying areas that need change and identifying a matrix that will enable them to follow up on their performance.

Setting formal reduction targets is also a way of ensuring that restaurants come together to achieve sustainability in the industry (Comfort et al., 2014). Businesses can be encouraged to work with various consultants and stakeholders to identify an appropriate matrix that can be used by the companies involved. This will create active engagement in the industry and amongst employees and this will bring a sustainability challenge for all the stakeholders (Verma et al., 2015). Therefore, setting goals through the collaboration of the employees and the companies involved will bridge the sustainability gap in this industry.

In the restaurant industry, sustainability helps in reducing operating costs. As an organization minimizes the impact of its activities on the environment, it reduces the amount of waste, and this saves them money that could have gone to cleaning the immediate environment or that could have been spent on fines due to environmental pollution (Verma et al., 2015). As a zero waste consulting enterprise, I would emphasize the need for businesses in the hospitality business to cut their energy waste. Upgrading to renewable sources of energy is one of the management plans that can be used to reduce the costs of an entity. Using the Energy Management System (EMS) helps firms in understanding the areas that they are misusing resources. It also helps in advising entities on how to change their behavior and save costs as they protect the environment.

The company can advise companies on reducing solid waste as a way to save money while enhancing their public image. According to statistics provided by the World Resources Institute, at least a third of the food meant for human consumption goes to waste. In return, there is a loss of over 900 billion dollars per annum which translates to the 8% greenhouse emissions in a year (Prigge, 2017). These losses affect farmers and those who are directly engaged with production. Therefore, reducing wastes helps in saving revenue that can be put to other uses. Restaurants, thus, can reduce food wastes by implementing reduction and reusing programs. Recycling programs can also help in improving sustainability efforts. Hence, the Zero Waste for Bulgarian Restaurants Company will create a way for firms to manage their solid waste while preserving their public image and creating a source of revenue from the practice.

Zero Waste for Bulgarian Restaurants aims at reducing water wastes and emissions are also ways of improving sustainability. Water is one of the resources that influences sustainability. Firms in this industry must find ways to conserve water and engage in efficient operations (Deale, 2013). This will help in saving water in the future, and it will allow enterprises to understand the economic benefits of reducing water wastage. Decreasing the carbon footprint in the globe requires that hospitability businesses come together to purchase equipment that reduces emissions during their operations (Waste Solutions Canada, 2019). This can help enhance brand relations and reputation.

Zero Waste for Bulgarian Restaurants will be integrating waste management solutions in a way that creates efficiency while reducing costs. A cost reduction approach is critical since it helps in identifying the best ways to minimize waste while maximizing the revenues (Waste Solutions Canada, 2019). This helps in monitoring the most efficient recyclables to use in waste reduction and other initiatives that can improve service delivery. Zero Waste for Bulgarian Restaurants will ensure that there is environmental stewardship among various firms in this industry. The company aims at creating an economic incentive for the companies while managing their waste, a practice that has been lacking in most sustainability efforts.

On account of the above points, it would suffice to conclude that sustainability in the restaurant industry can be achieved after engaging specific matrices. Some of the ways of achieving sustainability are by setting targets to reduce waste management and developing a way to monitor the performance of the companies. Additionally, companies and their employees can come together to ensure that they operate in ways that promote efficiency while creating value for their money. Integrating these efforts will create a leeway for the achievement of sustainability. The Zero Waste for Bulgarian Restaurants company will also be integral in facilitating this goal since it works to ensure that companies reduce their solid wastes as well as physical emissions. Therefore, sustainability in the hotel industry is achievable when the key players come together and agitate for a clean environment.

References

Bruns-Smith, A., Choy, V., Chong Ph D, H., & Verma Ph D, R. (2015). Environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry: Best practices, guest participation, and customer satisfaction.

Deale, C. S. (2013). Sustainability education: Focusing on hospitality, tourism and travel. Journal of Sustainability Education, 4(2), 17-25.

Jones, P., Hillier, D., & Comfort, D. (2014). Sustainability in the global hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(1), 5-17.

Kapardis, M. K., Varnavas, A., Neophytidou, C., Ioannou, G., & Tyrimos, A. (2014). Sustainability in the global hotel industry: the value of reporting. In 32nd EuroCHRIE conference" Hospitality and Tourism Futures", Dubai 6-9 October 2014. EuroCHRIE.

Melissen, F., Cavagnaro, E., Damen, M., & Duweke, A. (2016). Is the hotel industry prepared to face the challenge of sustainable development?. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 22(3), 227-238.

Prigge, J. (2017, May 23). Sustainability in the Restaurant Industry: Time to Fire It Up. Retrieved from https://tdn2k.com/industry-voices/sustainability-restaurant-industry/

Rosa, F. S. D., & Silva, L. C. (2017). Environmental sustainability in hotels, theoretical and methodological contribution. Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa em Turismo, 11(1), 39-60.

Waste Solutions Canada. (2019). service. Retrieved April 30, 2019, from https://wastecanada.com/service/