What Earth Day 2020 Holds for Hotels

Every year on April 22, around one billion people celebrate Earth Day by taking action to increase environmental awareness and make transformative change for the planet. Earth Day has been celebrated since 1970, and the yearly milestone marks an opportunity to reflect on some year-round steps companies are taking to protect the Earth.

In honor of Earth Day, CLC Lodging is highlighting some initiatives that hotels and other travel groups are taking to demonstrate their support for environmental protection on Earth Day and around the year. Here are a few:

Best Western: Best Western partners with LifeGate on its environmental protection initiatives, the Stay PlasticLess Project and Stay for the Planet. Stay PlasticLess aims to reduce the presence and use of disposable plastic, and Stay for the Planet involves hotels managing their activities in a sustainable manner by monitoring consumptions and other responsible behaviors.

Choice Hotels: Choice Hotels has a “Room to be Green” program, which has three levels, and five key pillars to promote environmentally sustainable practices: energy conservation, water conservation, recycling and waste reduction, employee engagement and operational excellence, and smart, safe and sustainable product usage. All US hotels are required to have achieved at least the minimum Level 1.

Drury Hotels: Drury Hotels has multiple green initiatives, including water conservation efforts and a recycled key program that prevents creating more plastic waste. Drury Hotels saves over 11 million gallons of water and five million kilowatt hours of electricity annually, and visitors have the option to earn points by declining housekeeping services each day of their stay.

Extended Stay America: In recent years, Extended Stay America rolled out a large-scale recycling and donation program as part of renovation work, which has diverted more than 25 million cubic feet of materials from landfills.

Hilton: Hilton’s award-winning LightStay platform, launched in 2009, allows the company to manage, report and improve environmental and social impact. Hilton committed to cutting the company’s environmental footprint in half by 2030, with programs including reducing energy usage, water use intensity, and waste.

Hyatt: Hyatt released its “2020 Vision” plan in 2014 to tackle pressing global environmental issues. The plan includes reducing waste and food waste, more thoughtful environmental stewardship, sustainable building, and identifying environmental solutions and opportunities across properties.

Motel 6: In recent years, Motel 6 has introduced environmentally-friendly initiatives such as the addition of fluorescent light bulbs in rooms, low-flow shower heads, high-efficiency toilets, and high-efficiency heating and air conditioning units.

Radisson Hotels: Radisson Hotel Group takes company-wide initiatives to build a better planet. The group committed to multiple focus areas for protecting the earth: carbon reduction, carbon neutral meetings, water conservation, minimizing waste, responsible sourcing, and ecolabels.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts: Wyndham takes daily steps to minimize environmental impact, and is focused on four areas for increasing sustainability: climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy, water conservation, and waste diversion.

CLC Lodging is proud to partner with these and other hotels that are committed to environmentally-friendly practices.