Sustainability and how to approach it in 2022

Sustainability is a journey. And whether you're just taking the first step on this journey or have been going at it for a while, education plays a significant role in enabling us as a global community to shift from our old habits into sustainable living. Here's the problem.

When we treat sustainability as a mere trend or a "marketing gimmick," we fall short of our goal and betray the principles of sustainable development.

Although it's nice to start engaging in sustainability conversations at your property, as hoteliers with strong values, let us not embark on this journey lightly.

In 2022, it's common sense to embrace sustainable development at your hotel, but common sense is often not common practice.

This article intends to share a basic understanding of the mindset, commitment, and passion that I hope you will adapt as an individual, a team, and a brand. Why am I sharing this, you ask?

It's simple. For sustainability to become impactful and our new way of life, it will take all our efforts. Regardless of your role at your company, you have the power to enlighten, educate, inspire, and guide your colleagues into a better understanding of why sustainability should not be a marketing tactic but instead the foundation and core of your business strategy.

If you have not read any of my past content, hotel sustainability might seem a bit overwhelming and abstract, so let me bring it a little closer to home by sharing my view on it and why we need to shift our business model into sustainable development now.

How to approach sustainability as hoteliers

Sustainability isn't a goal or a box that needs to be ticked so your team can market successfully to the more environmentally-conscious travelers. Sustainability is a way of life.

It is making choices at every level (personally and company-wide) to do more good than harm to each other, the local community, and our planet.

And if you're thinking "My company isn't doing anything wrong to the environment or the planet," I invite you to invest a little time watching the video below.

We are all guilty of harming our planet, the nature around us, the local communities around our properties, and, in some ways, each other.

Granted, much of this harm is done unconsciously and through poor choices in the past. But here's the thing: the more we continue on this track, the more we seal our karmic fate and move toward a future that harms our children and ourselves.

If you work on an exotic island or a city with beautiful landscapes and natural parks that travelers love, can you imagine what will happen when that beauty is no longer there?

I don't know about you, but I believe that even the most beautiful-looking property, when set in an unhealthy, deprived, and dying environment, soon loses its charm.

Working for a luxury brand like Mandarin Oriental Group, the concept of luxury and sustainability has been a grand passion for me.

At the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok, where I work, we started taking the first steps toward a more sustainable future a few years back, and with each step, our brand continues to move the needle toward becoming the kind of brand that I wish to see more of in future.

People, the environment, the local community, and aligning luxurious experiences with sustainable development are at the core of what we do.

Much of what we've been able to do has been through a lot of experimentation, trial and error, and doing our best to discover a better way to build a sustainable business.?

Has it always worked? Of course not. This is new terrain for all of us.

Until a few years ago, industrialization was the order of the day, and a mindset that matched that way of doing business was expected in a leadership role.

Was it easy to prioritize sustainability initiatives? Absolutely not.

With the pandemic and other external pressures and market volatility that we've all experienced, keeping our eyes on choosing the sustainable way has come at a great cost. But storms of life haven't deterred us from our commitment to becoming a brand we are all proud of.

And so, it is with this sober mind and the keen awareness that we still have a long way to go that I urge you, dear reader, to consider sustainability as a core building block at your company and in your personal life.

After all, if you don't embrace sustainable living personally, how could you ever get buy-in from stakeholders and bosses?

What it comes down to is the urgent need to re-imagine sustainability in your life and in your organization.

The gift of this article is to encourage you to redefine and reimagine what sustainability means for you as an individual, and then as an organization. Individuals drive change. So, unless and until we create that connection in your world, not much will change.

Think about your choices with the products you buy, your lifestyle choices, your travel choices, and the brands you support.

If you're unwilling to become more conscious about how and where you spend your money, it's going to be hard to connect sustainability with good business at your organization.

If, however, you can begin to live a little more sustainably, the culture of sustainability will naturally permeate the entire company.

The conversations about working with more eco-conscious vendors, sourcing more environmentally friendly products, and even how you deal with waste management will all start to make sense for everyone at the organization.

I have plenty of older content that shares simple starting practices like plastic use and so on, but I think more than anything, the shift I would like to see with all my colleagues is a mindset shift that carries the awareness of sustainable living as a way of life, not a checkbox for the company.

In my next article, I'd like to share some practical examples of how we are embracing sustainability as a way of life and company culture.

If you haven't yet subscribed to my newsletter, consider doing that now so you can get a notification when I release my next one next month. For now, I would like to pose a reflective question for you:

How much do you really believe in sustainability as a way of life for you and your family?

Enjoy the journey.

Franck Droin.