DEVELOPING A COMMON FRAMEWORK FOR TRACKING CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE AND ESTABLISHING AN ENVIRONMENTAL CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE HOTEL INDUSTRY IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Hotels form a major component of the tourism industry. With its operational activities that require lighting, heating, cooling, cleaning and washing to the provision of auxiliary services such as restaurants, entertainment and retailing, the hotel industry bears characteristics that can impact any social or ecological order through its demands on energy, water, food supply and waste disposal, and its influence over land use decisions and real estate prices. If not properly managed, hotels can adversely affect the environment, society and cultural heritage of the places they operate in. Singapore is where a variety of large and small hotels locate. In recent decades, Singaporebased companies have also ventured overseas, to develop or operate hotels and resorts. There are now a number of Singapore-headquartered or Singapore-managed hotel groups with operations in Singapore and/or overseas. The context of Singapore as the corporate headquarters or operational headquarters for these hotel companies provides the basis of a research study that is discussed in this report. The objective of the study was to develop a new framework for tracking corporate environmental performance and the establishment of an industry-based self-regulatory mechanism for Singapore hotels and resorts. This report contains descriptions of the proposed framework and of the key supporting approaches that are vital to the implementation of the framework at the corporate level. It also explores key factors concerning the use of an environmental code of conduct as a way to extend environmental best practices from the corporate level to the industry level. Also presented in this report are descriptions of current practices in corporate environmental management and environmental performance assessment, descriptions of the Singapore hotel industry and discussions about environmental issues that pertain to the hotel industry.