Travelife looks for evidence that businesses are following (or have plans to follow) the key principles of good environmental management.

Benchmarking: It is impossible for businesses to truly know what goals and targets to set, and how well they are doing, if they do not measure where they are currently. This process can simply involve recording measurements such as cubic litres of water consumed or kilowatt-hours. But it can also be a bit more labour intensive, such as carrying out an assessment of how well they are doing with customer satisfaction or their current impact on a sensitive natural area.

Setting goals & targets: These are an important way to make the business accountable both internally and externally, as well as to give staff something to work towards. These will ideally include short and long-term targets, some of which are measurable (e.g. 20% less energy consumption by the end of 2020) and some that are project or task based (e.g. install an underground irrigation system). Ideally, goals and targets are based upon past experiences and progress or calculated in line with planned improvements, they should not simply be plucked out of the air without some rationale behind them.

Taking steps to improve impacts: Following on from goal and target setting, Travelife wants to see some specific steps that are being taken to manage and reduce environmental impacts. Many of these are specific Travelife requirements, such as meeting maximum flow rates in bathrooms and having energy efficient lighting in 50% of guest areas.

Taking regular measurements: Again, it is impossible to know if their efforts are working unless they regularly record their progress. This mainly relates to the consumption of energy, water and hazardous substances, but we also encourage Members to measure their waste and to record any other progress they can, such as guest satisfaction scores. This should be happening at least once per month.

Analysis and reporting: At least once per year the business should review its measurements, goals and targets to see what went well, what needs to be changed and what could be further improved. Everything should be included in an internal sustainability report that is seen and discussed by senior management and used to set new goals and targets. Type I and II properties must produce a version of this report that is made publicly available so that staff, guests (including potential guests), their community and other stakeholders can read it.

Continuous improvement: The above steps should be repeated annually to ensure there is a continuous cycle of improvement and that impacts are improved year on year.

Much of the terminology used in this lesson is self-explanatory, however, here are some of the terms that we know our Members can be confused about, particularly as some of our requirements cross over different areas of the Travelife Standard.

Energy: One common area of confusion amongst our Members is that this only includes electricity. However, we want them to measure fuel from all sources including diesel for generators, kerosene for lamps and so on.  All of these must be converted into kilowatt hours and recorded on their energy consumption reports. We also need to ensure that properties are keeping equipment that consumes energy well maintained.

Environmental impacts: These are the effects the operations of the business have on air, soil and water quality, along with biodiversity and animal welfare. It also includes use of hazardous substances, although there are some health and safety considerations here too.

Hazardous substances: These include any substances the hotel has at their property that can harm people, biodiversity or the environment. Due to the prevalence of things like swimming pools, refrigeration equipment and in-house laundry facilities, these substances are commonly found in the accommodation sector. In addition to measuring, monitoring and reducing consumption, Travelife also looks at some areas that cross into health and safety such as storage, safety equipment and incident records.

Legislation: This refers to laws and regulations. They could be international, national, local or even specific to an industry body that the business belongs to. Where no local or national law exists, Travelife looks to either international laws or guidelines from respected and reputable NGOs and international bodies. For example, if a country has no laws regarding waste disposal, we will not accept waste being thrown into the ocean as several bodies, such as UN Environment, have demonstrated the negative impact this has on human health and biodiversity.

Licensing & permits: These are documents that the business must have in order to comply with legislation.  For example, a local law might require that a business has a permit to collect storm water or to use a desalination plant.

Solid waste: Whilst the definition is self-explanatory, it is worth being aware that many destinations do not have good waste management infrastructure and that the available services could differ by city, or even within different boroughs of the same city. This can even be true in developed places.

For example, in London you can compost food waste in the borough of Southwark but not in the borough of Westminster. In Tenerife, there are plenty of places to recycle plastic, but these are often located on public streets, so that housekeepers might walk directly to the bins from servicing rooms, making it more difficult to monitor this type of waste. Auditors are trained to assess compliance with the solid waste requirements when there are so many regional differences.

Water: This includes not only looking to reduce water consumption, but also things like ensuring that water sourcing does not disrupt natural water flows or restrict local water supply, ensuring equipment using water is properly maintained along with plumbing, proper management of waste water and water quality.

Wildlife & animal welfare: There are two key parts to this. The first is about ensuring that the property is not involved in the hunting, trade or consumption of any endangered species and that if they harvest any species from the wild, they can demonstrate that they do so in compliance with local, national or international regulations.

The second is about safeguarding the welfare of any animals (wild or domestic) that the guests may come into contact with. This could include wild animals, captive wild animals, stray cats and dogs, work animals or pets. They could be on the property (including things like birds or monkeys that are temporarily on site) or at attractions/activities that the hotel promotes to guests.

Travelife uses the ABTA Animal Welfare Guidelines to assess if a business is compliant with these criteria and they are an appendix to the Travelife Standard. There is a separate section dedicated to Animal Welfare guidelines later in this training.