Are you factoring carbon emissions into your travel procurement decisions? It doesn’t yet seem to be a strong trend in the U.S., in part due to the lack of good metrics. Here’s a company that is taking on the hard work of measuring CO2 emissions for hotel rooms: The Hotel Carbon Index.
Founded by Peter Ducker, he and his team have put a process in place to capture the relevant energy consumption data from hotels, and then convert that to CO2 emissions per available room (known as “CarePar” for Carbon Emissions per Available Room).
Travelport, a major GDS, has agreed to make the data available to its global customer base. (see Travelport’s press release). This means that hotel reservations can be tracked and the associated emissions reported as part of a company’s overall effort to measure its travel program’s CO2 footprint.
Currently, most hotels that report their data to HCI are in the U.K. Ducker says that the calculation method can be applied to hotels worldwide. It might not yet be very popular in the U.S., but it is a jolly good start.
Gillespie's Guide to Travel Innovation 