Hyatt Hotels: ditching single-use amenities in a drive to reduce waste (and save money)

Hyatt is initiating three steps to reduce its reliance on single-use plastics.

• Adopting large format bathroom amenities and ditching small single-use bottles
• Adding water refill stations, so you can top up your designer reusable water bottle – because you could dehydrate!
• Ditching the single-use water bottles it distributes at meetings and events, in favour of reusable containers like carafes

Are they introducing this immediately?

No – they have given themselves a 20-month timeline to achieve this by June 2021.

“Plastic pollution is a global issue, and we hope our efforts will motivate guests, customers and, indeed, ourselves to think more critically about our use of plastic.” 

Mark Hoplamazian, president and CEO, Hyatt

Playing catch-up

Hyatt is the last of the major three (Marriott and Hilton) to announce this kind of environmental initiative. Marriott and Hilton announced similar initiatives a month or so ago, as did the entire State of California.

Good for the environment and the bottom line

These sustainability initiatives are a no-brainer for profitability, not to mention reputation, and they happen to reduce environmental plastic pollution. And that’s probably the order of priority that Hyatt gives the initiative. Call me ‘cynical’ – I’ll take it on the chin.

Add that to the portfolio

Hyatt, mainly through their new alliance partners, has already launched some environmental initiatives – everything from composting and recycling to in-house water bottling plants (Alila properties). They even have a website about it: www.hyattthrive.com.

2PAXfly Takeout

All cynicism aside, this is a good initiative, but it’s not exactly groundbreaking. The 20 month implementation period is probably necessary, but it’s not like they are going to win the race on this.

I doubt they would be doing this without the pressure from other industry leaders, so this is ‘catch-up’ rather than leadership in my view.