Running a portfolio of hotels feels like juggling a dozen priorities at once. Energy bills rise. Food costs jump. Guests watch what you do, not what you claim. And corporate clients now treat sustainability the same way they treat Wi-Fi. They expect it.
The hard truth is that you can’t scale waste. One property that shrugs off energy spikes is irritating. Fifty doing the same thing hits your margin like a hammer. “Business as usual” now costs more than building cleaner, smarter operations.
The good news: sustainable operations cut waste, cut bills, and make your entire portfolio run smoother. And once you start, the wins stack up fast.
Sustainability quietly became a business requirement
A few years ago, you could treat sustainability like a side project. Something handled by one enthusiastic general manager or a corporate ESG team that sat far from day-to-day operations. That world disappeared. Travelers now reward hotels that take this seriously, and the numbers show it.
A Booking.com study found that traveling more sustainably is important for most travelers (84%). Corporate buyers feel the same. AGBTA report found that 44% of travel managers say their company has already integrated sustainability considerations into their travel program and 27% more plan to.
Energy also keeps eating a bigger slice of hotel budgets. According to one recent hospitality-market report, the annual energy cost per hotel room in a “typical hotel” ranges between US$ 2,000 and US$ 3,500 per room per year, making it one of the biggest controllable expenses in hospitality.
And the food waste problem? According to a UK-based estimate, the hospitality and food-service sector (hotels included) bears a cost of £3.2 billion per year due to food waste which works out to roughly £10,000 per outlet per year.
So sustainability is a financial and moral win. The hotel groups that treat it as a core operational strategy run leaner, respond faster, and look stronger to guests, buyers, and investors.
Why sustainable operations matter for hotel groups
When you manage a portfolio, the stakes rise. One hotel with bad habits is annoying. Fifty hotels with bad habits drain cash, reduce your margins, and weaken your brand story. Here’s what’s driving the shift:
- Rising costs make old habits expensive: Energy prices stay unpredictable. Food costs swing. Linen and cleaning supplies creep up. Cutting waste becomes one of the most direct ways to protect your margin.
- Corporate buyers now expect proof: Your sales teams feel it already. RFPs ask for environmental reporting. They ask about water use, energy reductions, and recycling programs. The hotels with clean data and clear progress land more corporate volume.
- Portfolio consistency matters: You can’t have ten hotels running lean, ten running sloppy, and ten sitting somewhere in the middle. Leadership wants predictable costs. Owners want predictability too. Sustainable practices create a clear standard every property can follow.
- Guests watch your actions: Travelers want to see real steps. They want you to run responsibly without hurting comfort or experience.
6 Quick wins that shrink waste and energy use in daily operations
Some fixes take capital but many don’t. Let’s start with the easy wins that stack up fast.
1. Track where energy actually goes
Energy reporting works best when it’s simple. Daily snapshots show patterns. Sub-meters in kitchens, laundry rooms, and back-of-house reveal unexpected drains. A GM who sees the spike can fix the spike. That alone saves thousands over a year.
2. Put HVAC on a smarter schedule
Heating and cooling often take a large chunk of a hotel’s energy use. Most hotels still run outdated scheduling and rely on manual adjustments. Occupancy-based controls flip the script. Rooms heat and cool only when needed. Meeting spaces adjust automatically. Hallways stop running at full blast at 2 a.m.
3. Forecast kitchen prep with better data
Kitchens waste food when they guess. They save money when they look at real patterns. Flight arrivals. Group schedules. Day-of-week buffet trends. POS data.
Hotels that track this consistently often cut buffet waste within months. Food waste is money waste, and this one change hits margins fast.
4. Right-size your housekeeping routines
Daily cleaning still matters for some guests, but on-request cleaning cuts water, chemicals, and labor hours. Linen and towel reuse programs save thousands of gallons across a portfolio. And targeted room-turn schedules help teams avoid wasted cycles.
5. Fix the tiny things that leak money
One broken tap doesn’t matter. Fifty taps matter. Same with worn door seals, flickering bulbs, and thermostats that drift off calibration.
These micro-issues rarely show up on a P&L, but they absolutely show up in your total annual spend.
6. Ask your staff where the waste hides
Staff see everything. They notice the equipment that runs too hot. They notice the lights that never switch off. They notice the bins that overflow at the same time every day. A five-minute team huddle uncovers more actionable insight than a long audit.
5 Smart tech investments that support sustainable practices
This is about giving your teams consistency, visibility, and fewer surprises. Tech isn’t the hero. Good operations are the hero. Tech just makes everything run smoother.
1. Smart meters and real-time dashboards
Rolling this out across a portfolio gives leadership a single view of energy use. It also highlights outliers. When one hotel sits 15 percent above the baseline, you know exactly where to look. Many portfolios see savings in the first year after switching to real-time monitoring.
2. IoT sensors for HVAC and lighting
Sensors keep empty rooms from heating and cooling all day. They dim lights in unattended corridors. They catch odd spikes early. A sensor costs far less than a month of wasted HVAC cycles.
3. Predictive maintenance
Equipment fails slowly before it fails suddenly. Predictive tools flag early warning signs of motors that strain, refrigeration units that cycle too often, or air handlers that run louder than normal.
Fixing issues early reduces energy use, extends asset life, and avoids emergency repairs.
4. Smart water systems
Leak detectors catch issues before they soak carpets or inflate bills. Low-flow fixtures in showers and toilets save thousands of gallons at scale. Digital tracking highlights which hotels run efficient and which ones run excessive.
Digital check-in and paper-light workflows
Every paper form, envelope, receipt, or printed waiver costs money. Digital check-in cuts material waste and slims front-desk tasks. It also frees staff to focus on real guest care.
The true win sits in standardization. When tech creates consistent habits across the entire portfolio, savings scale automatically.
Success stories that prove sustainable ops pay off
Hilton
Hilton’s “Travel With Purpose” program helped cut carbon intensity by 48 percent, reduce water use intensity by 36%, and landfill waste intensity by 61% since 2008.
Marriott
Marriott cut carbon intensity by 33 percent and water intensity by 20 percent across managed hotels since its baseline years. The group also diverted 58 percent of waste from landfill, thanks to better food-waste tracking, smarter purchasing, and stronger recycling systems.
Accor
In 2024, IHG made measurable strides:
- The company launched its industry-first Low Carbon Pioneers program. This identifies hotels operating without on-site fossil-fuel combustion and powered by renewable energy. The early members of this program already serve as testbeds for energy-efficient practices that reduce long-term operational costs.
- Across its estate, IHG continues to push food-waste reduction, better waste diversion, and responsible water use. By encouraging hotels to record daily food-waste data and report monthly totals through Green Engage, they turn waste tracking into a standard operating procedure.
- IHG integrates energy and waste efficiency measures into its brand standards. That means new hotels and major refurbishments aim for long-term savings instead of short-term wins.
6 Ways hotel groups can roll out sustainable ops across multiple properties
1. Start with a pilot
Pick two or three properties. Test energy dashboards. Try new kitchen forecasting. Trial new housekeeping routines. Build one strong internal case study.
2. Focus on the easy wins
Go after waste, HVAC scheduling, food waste, leaks and faulty sensors first. These wins show up on the balance sheet fast.
3. Create shared reporting
Use one template or one dashboard across properties. When every property reports the same way, you get clarity across the portfolio and teams know what success looks like.
4. Build property benchmarks
Show each GM how their hotel compares to others. Friendly competition works better than any corporate memo.
5. Celebrate the wins
Share real savings across the group. Highlight the chefs who cut buffet waste and the engineering teams who found and fixed water leaks before they became costly.
Recognition spreads good behavior faster than mandates.
6. Create a long-term roadmap
Once the basics run smoothly, shift into long-term upgrades like smarter HVAC systems, efficient laundry setups, low-impact renovation choices, and renewable energy partnerships.
The future is cleaner, smarter, and more profitable
Cleaner ops give your teams more control. They cut waste. They give corporate buyers confidence. They help you stand out in a market where guests watch what you do, not what you say. And they create real financial gains that grow with your portfolio.
The hotel groups that move first protect their margins. The ones that wait pay for it in higher energy bills, higher waste, and lost opportunities. A cleaner portfolio is a stronger portfolio. And the sooner you start, the faster the savings show up in real numbers.
Find out more about improving operations across properties (and much more) with the guide The Manager’s Guide to Meetings and Events Today.
