Sustainable Practices in the Hospitality Industry

This assignment examines sustainable development practices within the hospitality industry. Students will analyze a specific hospitality business, focusing on its key performance indicators (KPIs) related to sustainability. The analysis should explore how these KPIs are used to measure the business's impact on various aspects of sustainability, including environmental, social, and economic factors. The assignment encourages students to delve into relevant indicators and targets for sustainable development in the hospitality sector and assess their effectiveness in driving positive change.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Executive Summary:
The report has been developed to get an insight of the importance of the sustainability
strategy for the future of an organisation and hence the importance of a monitoring system.
This report has been designed with consideration of a restaurant (Café Sydney) and the
monitoring system for the same. The three dimensions of sustainability have also been
evaluated in the report with appropriate tables to measure its different components. Finally,
the paper has been concluded with a deep insight of the environmental dimension, its
indicator, its measurement and the limitations associated with the indicators.

2SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Table of Contents
Introduction:................................................................................................................................3
Cafe Sydney:...............................................................................................................................6
Dunphy Phase:............................................................................................................................7
Methodology:..............................................................................................................................8
TBL Dimension:.........................................................................................................................8
GRI Dimension:........................................................................................................................10
Assessment:...............................................................................................................................10
Conclusion:...............................................................................................................................12
References:................................................................................................................................13

3SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Introduction:
Sustainability of a firm represents the efficacy of an enterprise to maintain its
productivity and satisfactorily level. The enterprise also holds the responsibility to keep their
stakeholders satisfied. Hence, it is mandatory for an enterprise to keep a monitoring system
for the same. This paper discusses the development of the sustainability indicators monitoring
system. The paper has taken references to the works done in developing the monitoring
systems along with their characteristics and efficient indicators described in the same. Cafe
Sydney has been taken as the subject of the paper, and the system has been developed for the
same. The paper focusses on three key dimensions namely environmental, economic and
socio-cultural factors collectively called as TBL (Triple Bottom Line). The paper has been
concluded with an evaluation of the environmental dimension along with its limitations.
A monitoring system for sustainability evaluates the health of all the operating system
and defines the need for development or maintenance of the system (Zhang et al., 2016). The
considered subject of the paper is an energy plant, and hence the monitoring system for
sustainability of the enterprise should be developed depending on the same. The climate
change, the risk associated with the energy firms and other essential factors are to be
considered before developing a system for the subject. The monitoring system is developed
by taking consideration of environmental, socio-cultural and economic factors as critical
dimensions. Some previous works related to the same have been discussed in the following
sections along with the strength and limitation of the discussed works.
Parmenter, (2015) has defined seven key characteristics of the indicators that a
monitoring system should possess. The most considerable of them is the method of collecting
and processing data, the purpose of collection, types of data collected, the frequency of
collected data. The book offers an insight explaining of the characteristics and have also
explained the influence that these indicators propose on the monitoring system. The author
has also offered a preferred method for the assessment of the monitoring system in the book.
The assessment method suggests that the utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy should be
evaluated to develop a review of the monitoring system. The topics discussed in the book
offers a clearer understanding of the same because of the descriptive research on the discussed
topics.
Rösch et al. (2017) in their paper have discussed the whereabouts of the sustainability
of a German energy system. The paper has also discussed over the indicator system for the

4SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
same and the transition of the energy system. The authors of the paper have adopted the 17
SDGs (Sustainability Development Goals) that had been defined by the United Nations
(Rösch et al., 2017). The authors in their article have claimed that the indicator system
presented by them is first integrated and comprehensive system that has its basis in the
normative values. The paper has also left an opening for further research to determine the
impact of indicators on decision making and the political processes. The paper has provided
an excellent indicator model for their proposed objective. However, the practicality of the
model is still in doubt as a real-world implementation of the model is not being achieved yet.
Jurigová & Lencsésová (2015) discussed the need for a monitoring system for
sustainable development in the socio-cultural and mountain tourism in their paper. The
authors have established the base of the paper by quoting “Tourism destinations are
vulnerable to negative impacts of tourism development and thus require a sustainable
approach”. The paper has taken some references for the work done in the past for the
theoretical solution to achieve the objectives of the paper. The authors have done excellent
work to suggests the reasons that develop the need for a sustainability model for the tourism
industry but lacks in providing any practical work done to achieve the same. The results
developed in the paper are based on the previous work done on the same topic and lacks any
new data that helps in achieving the defined objective of the paper.
The characteristics of a good monitoring system and the features of a useful indicator
are shown below (Hák, Moldan & Dahl, 2012) (Jurigová & Lencsésová, 2015).
Characteristics Description
Reports The system should be able to produce a descriptive report on its
findings to further enhance the strategic policies.
Indicators The system should be able to produce definitive indicators for
the assumed purpose.
Identification capabilities It should be capable of identifying the issues and root the
identified problems.
Cost-Effective The system should be cost-effective for the enterprise in which
the system is equipped.
Result-driven The developed system should be result oriented.
Self-sufficient The system should have the capability to measure self’s

5SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
performance and intimate the user at times of fault. The need
for upgradation of the system should also be considered while
developing the system.
Supportive of Policy
reforms
The developed system should not violate the policy reform
processes and be in support of it.
User-friendly The system should be developed to be user-friendly.
Rationality The system should provide analytical reports on the target
performance decided for the coming future.
System supportive The designed system should be computerised instead of being
operated manually.
Decision making The power vested with the system should be utilized at
management level.
Suitable The designed system developed for the considered organisation
and not in general.
Effective submission The system should be designed to assure that the finding
reaches the right hand so that they can be used in maintaining
the sustainability.
Flaw determination The system should be designed to determine the flaws or the
person responsible for the flaw.
Method of reporting The method of reporting by the system should be positive and
the criticism should be constructive.
Table 1: Characteristics of an effective Monitoring system.
(Source: Created by Author)
The features of an effective indicator have been discussed in the following table (Rosen &
Kishawy, 2012):
Features Description
Relevance The indicators should stay relevant to their purpose to reveal
the required information about the considered process or the
system.
Understanding The indicators should adopt a straightforward approach for the
output so that it is understandable to both expert and non-
expert of the relevant topic.

6SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Reliable The output offered by the indicators should offer reliability
for further processing.
Assessable The data or information required should be accessible and
readily available.
Table 2: Features of Effective Indicators
(Source: Created by Author)
Cafe Sydney:
The subject of the paper is a Sydney based café going by the name Cafe Sydney.
Established within a converted landmark establishment (Customs House) the history of
considered café goes back to 1845 ("Customs House (former) | NSW Environment &
Heritage", 2018). However, the café evolved in 1998 and got a formal opening in 1999. Jan
Mckenzie joined the firm in 2000 and led the transformational phase ("Cafe Sydney", 2018).
The start was not very positive as the organisation has called the years 2003-2005 as its dark
years ("Cafe Sydney", 2018). Those years were the caused due to the redesigning of the
Custom for the inclusion of city library and other tenants. In 2005 the organisation took some
major steps to towards reformation by introducing new programs namely Café Sydney
Sunday and The Café Sydney Lounge ("Cafe Sydney", 2018). The good days for the
organisation started with the introduction of Todd Cummins (Restaurant manager), James
Kidman (Executive Chef) and others ("Our story | Cafe Sydney", 2018).
The considered restaurant has a vibrant history with ups and down and in the recent
years have proved to be a favourite spot for the food lovers. The problems may also arise
when the organisation will try to move from Dunphy Phase 3 to 6. The disaster management
plan of the organisation is also in question. The dark years of the firm may occur again due to
some uncertain disasters (like natural causes or some accident). Hence, the question for them
is are they ready to prevent their dark years from happening again. The firm also lacks behind
in sustainability strategy as it does not publish a yearly sustainability report. The hospitality
giants like Marriott and Crown Plaza have accepted their social responsibility and developed a
sustainability strategy for the same. The hospitality giants are taking different measures to
maintain their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability development (SD).
CSR refers to the self-propelled model of a firm to maintain their ethical responsibility
towards the society and the economics (Prud’homme & Raymond, 2013). However, CSR
does not give such importance to the environmental issues. General CSR for a hospitality

7SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
industry will be used to evaluate the socio-cultural and the economic factors for the
monitoring indicators of the sustainability strategy of the considered organisation. The
considered organisation, however, uses Dunphy Phase model to maintain their sustainability,
and it has been discussed in the following section.
Dunphy Phase:
The Dunphy phase analysis of an organisation is done to reveal the strategy that a firm
equips to maintain their SD (Ganescu, 2012). It offers six distinct phases to offer a glimpse of
the organisation’s approach. The phases are rejection, non-responsiveness, compliance,
efficiency, strategic proactive and sustaining corporation.
The first Phase refers to the phase where an organisation is non-responsive and offers
rejection towards the environmental goods and resources. The second phase comprises of
compliance and efficiency which focuses on reducing the risks associated with sanctions, in
the case the legal and community criteria are not met (Warwick, Wyness & Conway, 2017).
Finally, the third phase focuses on the strategic, proactive nature and changes in the business
model to sustaining corporation for development of sustainable values in the firm.
Café Sydney has enhanced human sustainability and focus on the supply-chain
relationship as a part of this strategy. Specific goals for the environment are also part of the
organisation’s strategy ("Environmental practice | Cafe Sydney", 2018). The environmental
practice by the café is to sustain their goodwill. This step has helped the organisation in
maintain a right image among the customers and hence increasing the profitability.
The café is looking forward to introducing innovative tools to gain competitive
advantage along with sustainability. To attain the desired result, the organisation should give
proper focus on its resources (human and supply chain in this case). HRM (Human Resource
management) can help to keep the employees motivated by appraisals and felicitations along
with keeping track of them (Crane & Matten, 2016). Equipping of sustainable supply chain
management (SSSM) will help the considered organisation to maintain an organised supply
chain as the latter also holds the responsibility for the sustainable development of an
organisation (Crane & Matten, 2016). The following adoptions can make the organisation to
move up from Dunphy Phase 3 to 6.

8SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Methodology:
The following sections will be used to create a sustainability monitoring system for
the Cafe Sydney. Socio-cultural, economic and environmental indicators will be used to
develop the monitoring system. The methodology for the same will also be discussed in the
sections following.
The method adopted to define the components of the indicators for the monitoring
system will be Kolb’s learning theory. The applied theory has four stages of operation namely
experience, reflection, conceptualisation and test/implementation (Kolb & Kolb, 2012). The
first step (experience) represents the collection of the data by experiencing a new scenario or
reinterpreting an existing one. In the considered scenario, the data have been collected by
visiting the subject’s website and other websites where the customers of the subject have
shared their experience about the firm.
Reflection is the second step in the learning process. Here, the data collected is
observed while collection and only the useful data for the process are chosen. In this
particular scenario, the data related to the environmental indicators are collected as per the
paper’s demand. In the conceptualisation step, the collected data are evaluated to develop the
monitoring system (Kolb & Kolb, 2012). The data are evaluated by the author based on the
sustainability reports of different hospitality industries and their efforts to preserve the
environment. The final step will be limited to the theoretical measures as a practical
implementation of the system is not possible in the defined scenario.
Ethical issues have also been kept into consideration while collecting the data and
evaluating them. The data or the result have not been manipulated to develop the desired
output. The sustainability reports of other industries are taken for reference purpose, and the
data have been copied from the same.
TBL Dimension:
The socio-cultural, environmental and economic together called as Triple bottom line
(TBL) factors for the considered enterprises’ sustainability will be considered in the following
section (Smith, 2012). TBL is termed as 3Ps where the Ps stand for the people, planet and
profit. The relevance of the TBL in sustainability is that it offers more efficient corporate
governance while increasing the regulatory compliance, hence increasing the efficiency. It
also helps in reducing legal risk level and the risk associated with the goodwill of an

9SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
organisation (Kucukvar et al. 2014). The dimensions individually have been discussed as
follows with their relevance for the considered organisation.
The economic variable refers the economic value (real or virtual) of an organisation
after deduction of all the expenses on the inputs including the tied up capital (Delrue et al.,
2012). The economic factors that measure the sustainability of the Café Sydney are requested
customer ratio, the average rate of “daily” customers in a year, the average time a customer
spends at the restaurant, high season (holidays, festive seasons) occupancy rate, average food
price, earnings per meal served and others. The relevance of measuring the economic variable
is relevance for the restaurant as the restaurant is in the service industry and in service
industry one should be aware of the effort involved and the return. This will also help the
restaurant to develop a strategy to build a new customer base and maintain the old customer
base.
Socio-culture performance refers the social responsibility of the organisation towards
the society and the culture (Soini & Birkeland, 2014). This is relevant for any organisation to
maintain their corporate responsibility towards the community that the organisation is
associated and hence omitting any chance for the development of chaos. The factors
responsible for the measurement of the socio-cultural dimensions are female employment
ratio, general manager’s gender, the organisation’s contribution towards the development of
their culture and its promotion within the organisation, percentage of buying the required
necessities for the service from the local vendors, turnover ratio of the supply chain, average
expenditure done for the training and educational purpose of the employee, general employee
turnover ratio and any other contribution to the society. In the long term, the socio-cultural
dimension will help the restaurant to strengthen their position in the locality, and the bond
with the customer of the same culture will also enhance (Boley & Uysal, 2013). The effort put
towards the employee, and their families and friends will develop a sense of honesty towards
the restaurant. All these factors prove to be of high relevance to the restaurant’s sustainability.
Environmental dimension refers the contribution of the organisation towards the
ecological needs (Moldan, Janoušková & Hák, 2012). Sustaining the ecology is the
responsibility of everyone and in this case especially for the subject, as the restaurant is
ecological dependent for their services. The subject is a hospitality industry that depends on
the environment for the raw materials (fish, meat, spices and others) (Dief & Font, 2012).
Energy consumption ratio (electricity, LNG and others), average water consumption,

10SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
investment and savings in water and energy conservation processes, saving from waste food
management (recycling the waste), landscape and protection of the designated area,
investment of in the green projects and other such measures are the factors involved in
measuring the environmental sustainability of the restaurant. Environmental dimension is the
most relevant to the subject as it has been mentioned above that the restaurant is environment
dependent.
GRI Dimension:
Global Reporting Index (GRI) is an organisation that acts independently to assess
different firms in understanding the impact they propose and the impact proposed on them on
human rights, climate change and the corruption ("Global Reporting Initiative", 2018). Hence,
it can be stated that the organisation helps in maintaining the sustainability of an organisation.
Café Sydney should adopt the GRI framework to measure and assess their sustainability. The
GRI indicator protocol will assess the café with its performance indicator (PI) that measures
the track of the factors like biodiversity, energy, emission and other. An assessment to this
will help the café to maintain the environmental dimension. ESG metrics of the dimension
also enables the organisation to measure CO2 emission, operation and payment situations,
financial transparency and others.
Assessment:
Environmental dimension
Indicators Description Measures Limitation
Emission The emission of
harmful gases like CO2,
CO, NO2 and others are
considered in it. They
are harmful to the
ozone layer.
Photometer and
exhaust gas analyser
can be equipped to
measure the
emission rate.
The price and
maintenance is a
limitation for the
equipping of the
monitor.
Fisheries This describes the
plants, animal or water
life harmed during the
process.
It can be measured
by equipping
biological indicators.
Lack of
Awareness about
the same is its
most significant
limitation.
Water It defines the quantity It can be measured High cost and

11SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
of water used in the
operations of the firm
and the quality of water
after use. Water
conservation plants can
be developed as a part
of a sustainability
strategy.
by general cubic
metres or litres
measuring device,
and the quality can
be measured using
ph-meter.
space required
along with the
reconstruction
issues are the
limitations for a
water
conservation
plant
Waste Waste refers to the
waste management
strategy. For hospitality
industry, it is plastics
and the residual foods.
Recycling of the waste
can be strategies for the
sustainability.
Zero waste Index
can be implemented
for the measurement
of the waste.
The complexity
involved with
zero method
index is its
limitation.
Land The use of land for the
defined purpose, the
quality of the soil and
keeping a green area
within the organisation
is involved in the
indicator.
Architectural design
and soil quality
measuring tools can
be used for the
measurement of the
tool.
The periodical
checking of this
indicator can
prove to be
challenging for
the organisation.
Energy The use of energy
(electricity and other
sources of powering) is
the indicator for the
environmental
sustainability.
Energy meters and
the records of before
implementing the
energy saving
models and after can
be used for
measuring the
indicator.
There is no
specified
limitation in
measuring or
planning for the
energy indicator.
Table 3: Environmental sustainability indicators
(Source: Created by author)

12SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
Conclusion:
The report discussed the sustainability strategy, its importance and the indicators
monitoring system using Dunphy’s phase model. Cafe Sydney was taken into consideration
for pursuing the designated objective. The TBL and GRI dimensions were evaluated and
derived at the conclusion stating their importance in the sustainability of an enterprise. The
report offered an in-depth insight into the environmental dimension of sustainability and
discussed the indicators for the same. From all the discussion made above it can be concluded
that it is the responsibility of an organisation to fulfil their duties towards the environment and
the society. Fulfilling of this duties also helps them in maintaining the sustainability of the
organisation. The report also suggests that to upgrade Café Sydney from Dunphy phase 3 to 6
they can equip HRM and SSSM systems that will help them maintaining their resources and
hence a sustainable future Hence, it can be concluded that each organisation should develop a
sustainability strategy for themselves by taking in consideration of the TBL dimensions for a
good future ahead.

13SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS MONITORING SYSTEM
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