Environmental Management for the Hospitality Industry: A Report

This report delves into the critical aspects of environmental management within the hospitality industry. It begins with an introduction to environmental audits as a key tool for assessing and improving environmental performance, differentiating them from environmental impact analysis. The report highlights the benefits of environmental audits, including safeguarding resources, ensuring legal compliance, and identifying cost-saving opportunities. A literature review examines current practices in the restaurant industry, including green designs, sustainable food sourcing, and waste reduction programs. Key areas such as energy management, water consumption, waste generation, insulation, and food miles are discussed in detail, providing insights into the environmental impact of various practices and potential solutions. The report emphasizes the importance of energy-efficient appliances, water conservation techniques, waste management policies, and the reduction of food miles to minimize the industry's environmental footprint. The provided references support the research and provide a foundation for the concepts discussed.

Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Environmental management for the hospitality industry
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Introduction
The environmental audit is an environmental management tool for the purpose of
measuring activities that are against the standard set for the betterment of the environment. There
are different types of the environmental audit and depending on the purpose. Environmental
auditing must not be confused with the environmental impact analysis, although both are an
environmental management tool. Environmental audit (EA) is done when a particular
development is already in place. EA is used to assess and check the existing practices and the
environmental effects due to the activities that are currently done. Thus it is important to note
that EA provides a picture of the scenario that is currently happening in an organization at the
time of analysis (Barton and Bruder 2014). The benefits of EA are: to safeguard the natural
resources and the environment used in a project or plant; to verify and the check the international
and domestic law compliance (Cook, van Bommel and Turnhout 2016).
It is important to make audits in relation to the environment is due to the following
reasons: demonstrate the commitment of the company to the environmental protection to the
employees; identification of the potential areas of cost saving and waste minimization and the
other related activities; in order to address the current and the future problems that may arise due
to the negligence towards the environment; enable the companies to have good environmental
practices and highlight as well as address the deficiencies (Viegas et al. 2013).
Literature review
Practices in the restaurant industry- The practices that are performed by the restaurant
industry are related to the dimensions of green designs of space and building, sustainable food,
green materials, green purchasing, recycle and reuse programs, environmental health, pollution

prevention, water conservation, energy efficiency. Furthermore, the restaurants provide training
to the employees and adopt the environmental policies which are related to the green practices.
While the other forms of the green practices that are performed by the restaurants are the
providing food in a sustainable way and ensure that when the consumers take the food, they do
so by helping the environment (Chou, Chen and Wang 2012). The restaurant's manager of Italy
emphasize on the 5 most important environmental practices like reduction in the usage of the
products that are environmentally dangerous; energy saving practices; a collection of the solid
residues selectively; water saving practices, usage of the reprocessed paper napkin or cloth
napkin. For both the Turkish and the Italian restaurant managers, the four most important
practices are the reduction in the usage of the product that is dangerous for the environment,
selective collection of the solid waste, energy and water saving practices (Doğan, Nebioğlu and
Demirağ, 2015).
Energy management- usage of energy is vastly greater in a commercial kitchen in
comparison to the food-related activities. Consumption of the energy is highly variable due to the
wide variety of the appliances and the variations in the models. The refrigerated storages alone
consumes 41 percent of the energy used in the kitchen. The other hot holding appliances like the
bain maries and the heat lamps consume 16 percent of the energy and the third largest consumer
is the grills. Thus, poor levels of monitoring and maintenance have led to the excessive energy
usage in the refrigeration. Whereas, consolidation of the refrigerated storage and correct sizing
can lead to a reduction in the energy consumption. In the restaurant industry, the largest
consumer of energy in a particular restaurant is the kitchen. The energy consumption in the
coking of food along with the refrigeration of the food items is the largest consumer of energy
(Mudie et al. 2013).

Water consumption- tourism to a big extent depends on the water as it a resource which is
required to provide the basic services and as food and hygiene. The water usage in the hotels can
also be contributed to the usage of pools, lakes, winter sports and golf fields. Furthermore, water
is the central element for the various landscapes in the tourism industry and it can be seen in the
parks, streams and lakes, winter landscapes and hotel gardens. Thus, it is important to mention
that low quality of water or scarcity of water if portrayed by the media, then it can tarnish the
image of the tourism or the hotel industry. It is also important to mention that the various
kitchens appliances in the restaurants deploy large volumes of water to serve its needs and also
the needs of the customers (Gössling et al. 2012).
Waste generation- it is reported that the food waste from the restaurants is about 56
percent while that of the waste generated in the restaurants is about 28 percent. The values
clearly show that the food waste is a major contributory factor in the solid waste generation.
Thus, it is important to note that the no waste management policy will be complete without the
need for the activities related to the management of the food waste (Pirani and Arafat 2014).
Insulation- insulation of the kitchen appliances in the restaurants can lead to the greater
efficiency in saving energy and better heat and cold insulation. These insulators are commonly
found in the appliances like the refrigerators, dishwashers, ovens, steamers and fryers (Demir et
al. 2015).
Food mile- food mile can be considered as a contributor to the increased amount of
transport pollution. Food items that need to travel longer distances will require more packaging
in order to retain its quality. This results in more amounts of processing of the food item due to
the more amount of time it takes to reach the retailers. This, in turn, leads to biodiversity loss due
to the increased amounts of chemical for the protection of the crops that will in turn aid in

storage. Food miles thus is often associated with the climate change and carbon accounting. The
more the number of kilometres a food product travels the more it contributes to the global carbon
dioxide volume. There is a need for the consideration of the indirect and the direct emissions that
are associated with the food consumption and food production. The low carbon production
techniques associated with the agriculture and the cultivation of the vegetable and the fruits that
are grown out of the season are the proper techniques for greenhouse gas reduction (Pratt 2013).

Reference
Barton, H. and Bruder, N., 2014. A guide to local environmental auditing. Routledge.
Chou, C.J., Chen, K.S. and Wang, Y.Y., 2012. Green practices in the restaurant industry from an
innovation adoption perspective: Evidence from Taiwan. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 31(3), pp.703-711.
Cook, W., van Bommel, S. and Turnhout, E., 2016. Inside environmental auditing: effectiveness,
objectivity, and transparency. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, pp.33-39.
Demir, H., Kemal Sevindir, M., Ağra, Ö., Özgür Atayılmaz, Ş. and Teke, İ., 2015. Optimum
distribution of thermal insulation material for constant insulation material volume or a given
investment cost. Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, 7(6), p.063122.
Doğan, H., Nebioğlu, O. and Demirağ, M., 2015. A comparative study for green management
practices in Rome and Alanya restaurants from managerial perspectives. Journal of Tourism and
Gastronomy Study, 3(2), pp.3-11.
Gössling, S., Peeters, P., Hall, C.M., Ceron, J.P., Dubois, G. and Scott, D., 2012. Tourism and
water use: Supply, demand, and security. An international review. Tourism management, 33(1),
pp.1-15.
Mudie, S., Essah, E.A., Grandison, A. and Felgate, R., 2013. Electricity use in the commercial
kitchen. International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, 11(1), pp.66-74.
Pirani, S.I. and Arafat, H.A., 2014. Solid waste management in the hospitality industry: A
review. Journal of environmental management, 146, pp.320-336.

Pratt, S., 2013. Minimising food miles: Issues and outcomes in an ecotourism venture in Fiji.
Journal of sustainable tourism, 21(8), pp.1148-1165.
Viegas, C.V., Bond, A., Ribeiro, J.L.D. and Selig, P.M., 2013. A review of environmental
monitoring and auditing in the context of risk: unveiling the extent of a confused relationship.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 47, pp.165-173.