Ecolabelling the Hotel Industry : The Nordic Ecolabel
Syrjäläinen, Oana (2013)
Syrjäläinen, Oana
Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu
2013
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201304134355
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201304134355
Tiivistelmä
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, accounting for more than 200 million jobs worldwide, thus being also one of the main threats for the environment. However, sustainable tourism has an immense potential of reducing the negative impacts through its threefold character: environmental, economic and social.
Sustainable hotels are accommodation units that have adopted environmental policies as part of their corporate responsibility agendas, by making efforts to reduce energy and water consumption and to manage chemical products and waste more efficiently. These efforts are either part of own environmental programmes, developed and managed by the hotels themselves, or they follow criteria drawn up by third party environmental specialists and governmental agencies, for which the environmentally viable hotels are awarded an ecolabel.
Ecolabels are voluntary schemes that can label any product, not necessarily related to the tourism industry. They have as purpose to monitor environmental development, to raise awareness and to educate as well as to promote and to reward environmentally friendly companies.
The Nordic Ecolabel, or the Swan Ecolabel, is the official ecolabel of the Nordic countries, covering 67 product groups at the beginning of 2013, from toilet paper to furniture and accommodation units. Its main purposes indicate that technological development and more environmentally friendly production are the key steps towards reducing the negative impacts on the environment.
The research part was applying version 3.4 of the Nordic Ecolabel criteria for the hotel Cumulus Koskikatu, being part of the Restel hotel chain that follows its own environmental programme, but might consider applying for the Nordic Ecolabel in the future. The research was commissioned by the hotel’s management to draw up a map of the requirements as well as to analyze at which stage the hotel is at the moment and what are the changes it needs to do. Due to confidentiality issues, the findings are presented in the appendix of this thesis and not published.
Sustainable hotels are accommodation units that have adopted environmental policies as part of their corporate responsibility agendas, by making efforts to reduce energy and water consumption and to manage chemical products and waste more efficiently. These efforts are either part of own environmental programmes, developed and managed by the hotels themselves, or they follow criteria drawn up by third party environmental specialists and governmental agencies, for which the environmentally viable hotels are awarded an ecolabel.
Ecolabels are voluntary schemes that can label any product, not necessarily related to the tourism industry. They have as purpose to monitor environmental development, to raise awareness and to educate as well as to promote and to reward environmentally friendly companies.
The Nordic Ecolabel, or the Swan Ecolabel, is the official ecolabel of the Nordic countries, covering 67 product groups at the beginning of 2013, from toilet paper to furniture and accommodation units. Its main purposes indicate that technological development and more environmentally friendly production are the key steps towards reducing the negative impacts on the environment.
The research part was applying version 3.4 of the Nordic Ecolabel criteria for the hotel Cumulus Koskikatu, being part of the Restel hotel chain that follows its own environmental programme, but might consider applying for the Nordic Ecolabel in the future. The research was commissioned by the hotel’s management to draw up a map of the requirements as well as to analyze at which stage the hotel is at the moment and what are the changes it needs to do. Due to confidentiality issues, the findings are presented in the appendix of this thesis and not published.