Hotel Council Aotearoa and EECA collaborate to drive hotel sector decarbonisation

Hotel Council Aotearoa (HCA) and EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conversation Authority) are delighted to announce the first ever comprehensive survey of hotel sector power usage in New Zealand. The announcement was made at the AHICE Aotearoa conference at Te Pae, Christchurch Convention Centre.

For the first time, the hotel sector’s annual operating survey has been expanded to include targeted questions on energy usage, water usage, and recycling. New survey questions were designed collaboratively by HCA, Fresh Info and EECA, a government agency tasked with mobilising New Zealanders to be world leaders in clean and clever energy use. The initiative was championed by the Hotel Industry Sustainability Group, an industry group working and collaborating on sustainability issues in the hotel industry, led by Kanika Jhunjhnuwala of Hind Management and Sudima Hotels and Richard Hayman of Scenic Hotels.

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134 of New Zealand’s 360+ hotels participated in the survey, comprising more than 50% of New Zealand’s hotel room supply. They were asked to disclose 2023 annual amounts of electricity purchased from the grid, electricity generated onsite, natural gas, stationary diesel, LPG, coal, and consumption of other stationary fuels. In addition, hotels provided details of annual water usage, waste volume to landfill and waste diverted to landfill.

HCA will work in partnership with EECA to better understand, interpret and disseminate the data, including creating national and regional benchmarks measured on a per-room and per-square metre basis. HCA will also collaborate with hotel sector suppliers who can assist property managers and owners to decarbonise.

“It’s a well-known maxim that you can’t improve what you don’t measure”, said HCA Strategic Director, James Doolan. “The hotel industry has a long history of being data driven. We wanted to take the first steps to building a repository of real-world data on energy usage that hotels in Aotearoa can measure themselves against. Better information will lead to smarter capital investment and ultimately to faster decarbonisation.”

“One of our goals is to build on this great start and drive even higher levels of industry participation in the energy use survey, especially among smaller independent hotels,” Doolan continues.

“Many hotels talk a good game on environmental sustainability, but we know that the next generation of travellers will demand real-world data and verification when businesses make claims around sustainability.”

“New Zealand markets itself as a green tourist destination and this is the first step to verifying that claim in the hotel industry in New Zealand,” said Kanika Jhunjhnuwala.

HCA plan to share key findings from the survey with the industry within the next month.