InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) IHG Green Engage program, the online sustainability program used by IHG-branded hotels worldwide, is now recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council under its LEED Volume program and Green Key Global (GKG) as providing streamlined pathways to certification.
IHG is the first hotel company to provide an approach to precertification for new-build hotels under the LEED 2009 for New Construction rating system. This is IHG’s second LEED designation-IHG was also the first hotel group to provide LEED precertification for existing hotels.
Globally recognized sustainability certifications like LEED and GKG could improve hotels’ bottom lines, as government and corporate clients increasingly request hotels’ environmental credentials through the request for proposal (RFP) process. IHG Green Engage provides a streamlined approach for responding to RFP questions on sustainability by helping hotels track their carbon footprint; energy consumption; water consumption; and waste diversion rate. The IHG Green Engage program feeds this information into the RFP format for hotels.
“Our research shows that over 70 percent of frequent travelers prefer hotels that are engaged with their environment, and we expect a growing number of guests who want to book greener hotel rooms,” says Paul Snyder, vice president of corporate responsibility and sustainability for IHG. “LEED and GKG are well-respected industry certifications and a stamp of approval that highlight hotels’ green achievements.”
IHG recently announced that IHG Green Engage hotels exceeded the three-year target to reduce energy per available room by between 6 and 10 percent. The new IHG Green Engage targets for 2013 to 2017 include reducing carbon footprint per occupied room by 12 percent across the entire portfolio and reducing water use per occupied room in water-stressed areas by 12 percent.
