It's a Green Day in the Neighborhood

It was a great day when I was invited to speak about being environmentally sensitive while on the road at the Mensa Annual Gathering (AG) this summer (and I'll be doing another presentation at the Nevada Regional Gathering in October). I had a good time, and my audience seemed to get a lot from it too. It was interesting to see the variety of green actions people take both at home and on the road. So I was intrigued when Ypartnership, a branding company, emailed with the results of a survey they'd done regarding being environmentally conscious.

The article starts out with the statistic that 90 percent of Americans claim to be environmentally conscious (EC). I live in an area that's not very EC so that statistic doesn't hold true around here. But even coming from the green city of Boulder, CO, where I used to live, I have a hard time believing that many people across the U.S. consider themselves EC. Ok, so we disagree on one point.

The question Ypartnership is trying to answer with their survey is whether it makes sense for "suppliers" -- which I'm translating to hospitality venues, since that's my focus -- to be environmentally friendly and conserving. That's a question lots of people in business are asking daily. I actually think the question is backwards. I think the question to be answered is whether it makes sense to not be environmentally friendly and conserving in your business practices.

Of the respondents in the Ypartnership survey who called themselves green, most took environmental actions like recycling, buying environmentally safe/friendly products, moderating their heat/AC, turning out lights when not using them, taking shorter showers, and even composting. Women seemed to be slightly more inclined to take green actions than men. These are actions that minimally impact people's lifestyles.

The actions that require more change, like carpooling, taking public transportation, or even driving a hybrid, were subscribed to much less. And again, women tended to be more prone to make these changes than men. What does that say about Americans? That they only care about the environment when it's convenient and easy, when it's "cool"?

And that trend, the one of women being a bit more proactive in greening their worlds, matches my concept of how things go, based on my observations of the world. I'm getting a kick out of watching one woman, a friend of mine in Cleveland, greening her house; check out Mom Goes Green to see how a young family is discovering the joys and challenges of going green. She's an indicator to me of who's the driving fore in changing the world.

Now, what kinds of comments do you think I got from my audience (from that talk I gave to the Mensa AG)? They have a hard time finding green businesses and that frustrates them, they hate paying more for green services like hotel rooms, and they wanted even more ideas of how to green their lives and their travels. My survey is indeed a small sampling, but it's not unlike the comments I hear as I go through life. And I'll continue gathering samplings as I talk to

The conclusion Ypartners reached is that going green gives a market opportunity as far as market share goes, but not as far as rates or yields is concerned. Their conclusion seems to say that there's no green in being green. I don't believe it.

How does that conclusion translate to the hospitality industry? For Ypartners the conclusion is essentially for businesses to not expect to raise rates because of adopting green actions; they should be green just because it's the right thing to do. For me the conclusion is green your business because it saves you money and attracts loyal guests; and that money savings reflects environmental savings too.

Raising your rates for greening your business doesn't make sense, given that many green actions save money. Rates need to reflect your costs, so when your products cost more it makes business sense to pass that cost on. But when your costs go down, raising your rates is business suicide. To raise your rates because a room, for example, has gone green negates any goodwill you earned by greening that room. Just because people might be willing to pay more doesn't justify charging more.

Yes, businesses should be stewards of the environment. But there has to be a good business model in that stewardship. It seems to me that if there was no business model in being green there wouldn't be an ever growing number of hotels adopting green practices like there is. Take a look around. It's a green day in the neighborhood for lots of people.