Hilton Sustainability Report: Company Beats Water Goal

Hilton Worldwide last year achieved its goal a 10 percent drop in water consumption one year early, cutting water use 10.2 percent since 2008.

The company says this goal, like its other major environmental metrics, is based on results for 2,263 Hilton Worldwide properties and adjusted for weather and occupancy. The metric is per floor area.

The hotel used 73.8 gallons of water per square foot in 2012, compared to 76 in 2011 and 78.8 in 2009. For this metric, unfortunately, the company doesn’t provide a 2008 measurement.

Per room, water use fell from 207.7 gallons in 2011 to 196.4 in 2012. Again, the company has not made earlier years available. On an absolute basis in that time period, water use fell from 25.45 million gallons to 24.72 million gallons.

Hilton says it has developed several partnerships that offer improved laundering technologies, which can reduce water use by up to 45 percent, energy use by up to 43 percent and extend linen life by up to 40 percent.

The company says it has also developed sustainable housekeeping supplies that can reduce the amount of water used in cleaning processes by up to 30 percent, as well as improve efficiency and reduce the number of toxic chemicals used for cleaning. And Hilton says it has identified new lines of towels engineered to be lighter weight and more durable than standard towels, meaning hotels can launder more towels per load, and also produce less waste.

Report overview

The 96-page report covers most of the metrics one would expect, although as noted above, sometimes the achieved goals are not fully detailed with actual numbers.

Hilton’s portfolio includes over 4,000 managed, franchised, owned and leased hotels and timeshare properties in 90 countries. Its 10 brands include DoubleTree, Conrad, Embassy Suites, Hampton Hotels and Homewood Suites.

The company says it counts sustainability as a performance metric on the same level as quality, service and revenue. The company uses LightStay, its proprietary sustainability measurement and reporting system, to calculate and analyze performance across more than 200 indicators, in areas including energy, water, carbon, paper product usage, waste, chemical storage, air quality and transportation.

All Hilton properties, whether owned, managed or franchised, must use LightStay to measure sustainability performance. Hilton says the system also supports its sales channels through a Meeting Calculator feature, which computes the sustainability impact of meetings and events at its properties. Such data is important to many business customers, the company says.