Never Ending Mission

A footstep away from the White House, Washington D.C.’s Willard InterContinental, under General Manager and IHG Regional Vice President Hervé Houdré, has evolved into one of the greenest hotels on the block. The passion and patience have left their mark.

When Gina McAdam of LEADER asked me to write about the Sustainable Development Strategy of the Willard InterContinental, I thought this would be a great opportunity to address a major issue of our planet and a major responsibility of our industry.

I am not a ‘green guru’, nor a political activist. I am simply a ‘citizen of the world’, and there are many like me in our profession who believe that it is time to give back after having received a lot from life. All of us should realise that we have the possibility of being good and doing good in our positions.

An evolving profession with new responsibilities

No need to be rich or famous to give back. Our profession has evolved so much in the last 40 years. Up to the end of the 1970’s we were innkeepers, hiring attentive and professional staff, training them and offering an excellent product to our clients so that they would come back and entice their friends to try our properties. In the 80’s we became business people, developing revenue lines though marketing and sales strategies and the bottom line by implementing ratio guidelines. In the 90’s we turned into asset managers, managing hotels on behalf of financial institutions or owners who expected us to focus on developing profit for every square foot of the property. Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, we must become citizen hoteliers, still caring for our clients and employees, still developing revenue and profit for our owners, but this time adding two bottom lines to the economic one: social responsibility and environmental protection.

Our properties create a vast amount of waste and consume a lot of energy. They benefit substantially from local communities that support and bring them business. It’s not simply an opportunity, but a true responsibility of ours to move towards a new way of thinking, a new approach to business and responsible citizenry. Hotels and hotel companies give us a perfect platform to develop such a model.

Strategy and legacy

Our core duty toward ownership is obviously to optimise the economic bottom line of a property. This we achieve by ensuring guest and employee satisfaction, and by rapidly developing the image and revenue of the property of which we are in charge. This is what the ‘manager’ in our title means. But the role of a General Manager is much more than that. General Managers should consider themselves little CEOs of their business, and think in terms of strategy and legacy.

Strategy begs the question, ‘What should I do to improve the intrinsic value of the property I manage on behalf of an owner?

Legacy enquires, ‘What is going to remain from my tenure as GM?

Sustainable Hospitality is the obvious answer when you manage the Willard InterContinental, which is more than 150 years old. Rather than simply looking at the rear view mirror and talking about past glories, the clear responsibility of the General Manager is to offer a vision and strategy for the years to come. We named our strategy, Willard InterContinental - The Next 100 Years! And it is based on adapting the Triple Bottom Line principles of Sustainable Development -- Profit, People and Planet -- to every project we undertake and every decision we make.

First and foremost, Sustainable Development keeps us focused on the economic bottom line as it obliges us to concentrate on managing our waste and establishing an efficient energy management program. So an economic crisis is not a deterrent to implementing that strategy. However it can only be successful if the General Manager is genuinely convinced that it is a good plan and is ready to keep a very acute eye on its progress.

Committees at work

We ignited our strategy in May 2005 by organising a three-hour information managers’ meeting in which a consultant from SustainAbility, the company founded by John Elkington -- the father of the famous Triple Bottom Line concept -- explained the concept of Sustainable Development through examples of the industry at large and specifically our industry sector. Most of the managers were so excited that they decided to create committees right away to address issues dear to them. Today we have the following committees:

• Project Blue - everything that has to do with water
• Project Green - related to the reduction of our carbon footprint
• Project Care - all community service activities
• Project Health - initiatives that entice our employees to quit smoking, lose weight and exercise
• Project Educate - all actions designed to help educate children in need
• Project Purchase – when it makes economic sense we purchase green, eco-friendly, organic, local products

Each committee meets every month, with all committee leaders meeting once a month as well to go over past and future actions. It was important to be able to measure our progress in terms of carbon footprint and we hired a local company, EnviRelation, to calculate it on an annual basis. The first report is the best evaluation possible and our calculations will be fine tuned every year.

As we had already achieved a lot, we felt it was time to show our commitment to SD by publishing our first Sustainability report based on the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards. It may be perceived as exaggerated for a small entity to publish such a report, but our aim is merely to show our commitment to this important enterprise and, more than anything, to help and oblige us to aim higher in the years to come.

Buy-in and motivation

We are successful because of the many managers and employees who are convinced our strategy is the right one. In turn, they are motivated to encourage others around them to be involved. How do they derive and express this motivation? Our housekeepers report all guests who wish to reuse their towels or sheets; our chefs buy and work with organic and local products; our front desk agents invite our clients to help support our water wells sponsorship in Africa or South Dakota. Everyone has a good reason to feel part of the global project and we celebrate our successes during our town hall meetings and other occasions.

One key initiative to keep us on track has been the creation of a five-year roadmap illustrating deadlines and measurements. Nothing is written in stone, but it is a very good working tool to keep us focused on delivering on our engagement.

More in progress

We have now completed many initiatives but still have many more in progress and others in development. Sustainable Development is a very long and unending journey and it starts with a first step. If you have been able to read this article to the very end, and if you think there are certain relevant ideas that you could implement in your hotel or company, then I believe we would have achieved that first step.

And never forget that it all starts with the economic bottom line, so feel confident that Sustainable Development will make your hotel even more sustainable economically. If you think this argument is insufficient, then think of the world you want to leave to your children.

Readers who are interested in this subject and wish to learn more about the details of the hotel’s journey should visit the dedicated website www.willarddc.com/sd
You can also view The Willard InterContinental Sustainability report at http://willarddc.com/sd/docs/Willard_InterContinental_SR2007.pdf