You are not alone

One of the great things about being part of the Green Team in your hotel or destination is that you are part of a bigger movement that is changing the world for the better.

Hoteliers - a great place to start is the American Hotel and Lodging Association's Green section at http://www.ahla.com/green.aspx The 11 Green Guidelines are a great place for any Green Team to start !

Cheers

JD

Creating a baseline

There is a buzz of anticipation in the hotel at starting the new green program. Great ideas are coming from all departments and it seems everyone is coming up with little things they are already doing to make a difference. Opportunity is everywhere! Taking time to stop and measure what we have been doing up till now is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
And yet – it is critical that you take time in the middle of all this “buzz” to get a handle on your performance to date. Start with the three most important environmental measures – water, energy and trash – and get your own baseline performance NOW before the new programs start. These measures will provide you with a way to show what an impact those programs make in your operation. You’ll be glad you did!

The First Steps to a Great Green program.

You are finally moving forward with the program to make your hotel “green” and your team has plenty of energy and ideas. So – where do you start?
Here are three things that may help…

1. Commit. The boss has signed off on the program and he or she has given you the "go ahead" -see the last posting. Nevertheless it is important that you formalize the commitment - both with the boss and the people in your organization.

2. Get a baseline. This is an important step and can be overlooked in the early stages when ideas are being thrown around and energy is high but it is very important. Remember - this baseline will be the point from which all future improvements will be measured !

3. Capture all the great ideas for review and - where possible – implementation. This is an exciting time in the life of your team and you should make sure the creativity of these first few weeks is not lost during the hard work of implementing your program.

These three steps are critical in their own way to the success of your program and we will look at them each in more detail in future posts.

A Letter from the GM...

So what might a “kick-off” letter from the General Manager to the Green Team look like? Here are my thoughts on a good way to set the right expectations from the start:

Dear Green Team:

Thank you for volunteering for this important work. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this project and I will support you in to the best of my ability.

First of all – you need to know you are not alone. Adopting sustainable business practices in our hotel will take the commitment of our whole team – not just your green team. That will start at the top and I will ensure that it is clearly understood you have my support. Each of my direct reports will have specific responsibilities to ensure this plan is implemented. We will change job descriptions and responsibilities to ensure “green” goals are formally included in each employee’s job description.

This is a long term commitment, similar to our commitment to excellent customer service and quality management. We won’t be the perfect green hotel tomorrow but we will commit to continuing improvement. These are tough times but we will make what immediate changes we can to our business practices today to start on the path to sustainability.

Our changes must be driven by not only the desire to be good corporate citizens but by smart economics. We must adopt activities that improve our efficiency and reduce long term costs while doing the right thing by the environment. We must find ways to communicate our progress in ways that is meaningful and appeals to our customers and generates sales.

As members of the Green team I want you to be the “engine” of our change and there are a number of things I would charge you to do:
1. Working with the management team I want you to seek out opportunities to improve our systems and make us the most environmentally sound operation in the market.
2. I want you to ensure we measure our change and capture hard numbers that show the benefits of the program. We can’t manage what we can’t measure and those progress will be important to our team and our clients and stakeholders.
3. I want you to keep the energy of this “change” program high. I want you to ensure our team in-house is aware of the difference they can make and the progress we are making together.
4. I want you to keep our sales team up to date on any new business opportunities that being “green” may afford us.
5. I want you to ensure our marketing team has a constant stream of information they can use when talking to our clients and the media.

Thanks again for being part of this important effort. I look forward to working with you to make our hotel a better place !

Introducing Green to your hotel requires change...

Many hotels are becoming concerned about becoming more "Green" and "Green Teams" are springing up in hotels and other organizations all around the country. This is truly an exciting time for our industry as we work through how we can work smarter in ways that attract new clients, increase our organization's efficiency and leave the planet in better shape than we found it.

Green programs are also challenging to implement - even with the best of intentions! Green programs require "change" and effectively implementing change into any organization can be very challenging. Fortunately - effectively implementing change is a topic that many great management thinkers have been working on for some time.

Introducing "Green" to tourism and hospitality is too important to let it fail because we can't get the management issues right. This blog will look at how to implement change and make it stick.