SINGAPORE, 24 March 2022: The Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) initiated the Hotel Sustainability Roadmap during the inaugural Hotel Sustainability Conference and Marketplace, held at Sands Expo and Convention Centre earlier this week.
Hotel Sustainability Roadmap
As part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, the roadmap sets targets and strategies for hotels to adopt in their sustainable journey. It will enable them to contribute to sustainable development goals, capture new opportunities presented by the green economy, strengthen enterprise resilience, and tap new visitor segments.
Roadmap milestones
1. Integrate sustainability as a core value across the entire hotel ecosystem,
2. Establish a living lab and uses sustainability to drive business competitiveness and growth, and
3. Recognition as a leader in environmental sustainability in the region.
The roadmap requires that 60% of hotel room stock in Singapore attain internationally-recognised hotel sustainability certification by 2025.
Hotels must also commence tracking emissions by 2023 and reduce emissions by 2030, with a view to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Participating hotels will be able to tap STB funds such as the Business Improvement Fund to support sustainability initiatives that improve competitiveness and productivity, which may put hotels in better stead to seek sustainability certification subsequently.
They can leverage SHA’s Hotel Technology Directory to source for sustainability solution providers and the Hotel Sustainability Playbook (ready by Q4 2022) to reference best practices, success cases and outcomes.
They will have the opportunity to create new sustainability jobs by tapping on STB’s Training Industry Professionals in Tourism (TIP-iT) grant to build capabilities and train staff to take on these roles.
STB and SHA have also identified four focus areas to green hotel operations to ensure that hotels’ sustainability efforts drive impactful environmental outcomes.
1. Water Conservation (implementing smart water meters, reverse osmosis water recycling for laundry facility, water-efficient toilet fit-outs in rooms).
2. Waste Management, Recycling and Circular Economy (artificial-intelligence (AI) powered food waste management solutions, food digestors).
3. Sustainable Sourcing and Procurement (in-house farms, locally-sourced produce, assessing vendors based on certification/sustainable practices).
4. Energy Conservation (district cooling systems, solar panel technology, smart energy meters, trigeneration plants)
The roadmap is endorsed by the Hotel Sustainability Committee (HSC), which was set up in March 2020 to drive industry-wide adoption of sustainability practices in hotels to promote Singapore as a sustainable destination. The committee comprises members from the hotel industry and representatives from the public sector.
(Source: STB)
