Hilton Worldwide – Benjamin Altman – 2018

Goals

In May 2018, leading global hospitality company Hilton committed to cut its environmental impact in half and double its social impact investment by 2030 through the company’s Travel with Purpose corporate responsibility program. As part of the new 2030 targets, Hilton committed to cut its water and waste intensity by 50%, and the company became the first major hotel company to institute science-based carbon reduction targets. Hilton’s goal to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 61% by 2030 has been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as being aligned with the level of carbon reduction stipulated by the Paris Climate Agreement.

In order to track initiatives that will help Hilton achieve its 2030 goals, the company’s Engineering leadership sought to better understand the implementation status of key environmental conservation measures (ECMs) across the hotel’s portfolio of approximately 250 company-managed hotels in the Americas. To solve this challenge, Hilton brought in EDF Climate Corps fellow Benjamin Altman to create a visual dashboard that would provide the information needed and enable Hilton leadership to prioritize efforts toward the properties that most need to improve sustainability efforts.

Solutions

Altman worked with Hilton Americas Engineering leadership to identify 13 key environmental conservation measures with the biggest impact on a hotel’s sustainability performance. These measures ranged from low-cost LED lighting to advanced building analytics systems. After identifying the relevant information, Altman created a comprehensive Tableau dashboard which maps Hilton’s properties using their ECM performance averages by region. The dashboard also includes an easy to use list of ECM performance per hotel across the Americas.

Potential Impact

This new tool will allow Hilton to track and hold hotels accountable for progress toward ECMs that contribute to the company’s carbon, water and waste reduction goals. The tool’s functionality will be incorporated into Hilton’s award-winning LightStay sustainability data reporting system, to enable to company to directly track the savings achieved by implementing the ECMs tracked in the dashboard.