As we’ve seen, many companies within the hotel industry change their hotels to be sustainable because of the appeal to the consumer, and while Hilton is one of these companies they also do so much more to better sustainability across the globe. Now that it is more or less cost efficient for hotels to spend the extra money to become sustainable it is hard to distinguish the hotels that are making the switch to make money and those that are making the switch because they genuinely care about the well being of the planet.
Hilton goes above and beyond the expectations of a “sustainable hotel”by trying to improve global sustainability for a selfless cause. In the beginning of 2014 Hilton Worldwide partnered up with Sundance Institute to create the Hilton LightStay Sustainability Award. 
This award is one that promotes the spread of knowledge (similar to this blog) by recognizing exceptional documentary films which divulge into the issues surrounding sustainability. The four documentaries that were chosen to receive this award this year were The Island President, Easy Like Water, Solar Mamas, and From the Mara. Each documentary explored climate change and the effects in third world countries. By getting promotional marketing from Hilton’s award more and more people are watching these documentaries and becoming educated about the topic.
Below is the video of Hilton’s LightStay Sustainability Award that explains how the award causes the spread of knowledge.
Before the expansion into global #sustainability like the LightStay Award, Hilton had a concrete formula for change within the company that allowed them to continuously improve. In the Flow Chart below, Hilton WorldWide shows how they envision sustainability reaching its full potential across the #hospitality industry. Within each hotel, it is important do more than just try to make improvements. Once the sustainable changes have been made to the hotel it is imperative to measure their success, follow up with a #CSR report, and most importantly learn from what went well and what didn’t. Using these means of improvement is how Hilton achieved exemplary sustainability and I believe that other chains would do well do learn from Hilton example.
Such a selfless drive for sustainability is the goal across the hotel industry but in reality there is no definite end goal. Hotel consumers and Hotel chains need to work with and off each other to keep #change continuous. Spreading change and knowledge of sustainability is the only way that the hospitality industry will have a key, long lasting effect on sustainability world wide.
CSR in the Hospitality Industry 