A new carbon initiative has been adopted by over 15,000 hotels around the world, according to BreakingTravelNews.com. The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative allows them to calculate and communicate the carbon footprint of guests' hotel stays and meetings in a way that is consistent and transparent.
The measurement was developed by the International Tourism Partnership, the World Travel & Tourism Council and 23 leading global hospitality companies to bring this new methodology to their properties and to communicate the new initiative to a wide range of stakeholders, which includes industry associations, certification bodies and corporate customers.
The newest version of the initiative was issued in June to mark World Environment Day. It improves upon the first version by giving greater clarity on reporting emissions and has been streamlined to be more user-friendly, which includes easy-reference emissions factor tables.
A voluntary and free methodology, HCMI, was developed to meet global carbon reporting standards while also being practical enough for a hotel to implement, from huge casino hotels to small independently run bed and breakfasts.
"The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative is a fantastic example of the world's largest hotels putting their competitive differences to one side to work together in the interests of the industry overall," David Scowsill, the president of WTTC, said. "It is fitting that we mark World Environment Day with the release of the next version and I hope that even more hotels will sign-up to use what is rapidly becoming a new industry standard."
Bill Clinton acknowledged the importance of HCMI in his keynote address at a recent WTTC Global Summit in Abu Dhabi. He stated that the travel industry has already started to take on the development of HCMI.
"The industry's willingness and ability to come together to make sense of the carbon issue, for the benefit of the customer, is a significant achievement and a great example of practical, effective collaboration on a critical environmental concern," Stephen Farrant, the director of ITP, said. "With such a high volume of hotels globally now measuring their carbon footprint in a consistent way, and with corporate customers increasingly hungry for this information, this is a great step forward on World Environment Day."
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