Pathway to Net Positive Hospitality
Enabling every hotel to work towards a net positive impact, no matter their starting point
Vision: A prosperous and responsible hospitality sector that gives back to the destination more than it takes
What is Net Positive Hospitality?
Net Positive strategies aim to put more back into society, the environment, and the global economy than they take out. By working together as an industry, we have the collective power to ensure that our destinations and communities are protected and regenerated now and for future generations. Hear from leading industry CEOs on how we are making Net Positive Hospitality a reality.
Taking a holistic approach
Net Positive Hospitality brings together people, planet, place and prosperity to create a better and more sustainable future for all:
People
Respecting and enriching the lives of all our people
Planet
Replenishing resources and restoring biodiversity for a thriving natural world
Place
Working in harmony with our communities and ecosystems
Prosperity
Ensuring economic successes and opportunities benefit all
Understanding the relationship between our footprints and our handprints
Everyone will leave a footprint.
Net Positive is about understanding the relationship between our negative impacts – our footprints – and our positive contributions – our handprints – to ensure we are treading as lightly as possible and have a lasting positive effect. This way, we all contribute towards ensuring that our communities and destinations are thriving and healthy.
Introduction to the Pathway
To achieve our vision of a prosperous and responsible hospitality sector that gives back to the destination more than it takes, we have created the Pathway to Net Positive Hospitality.
The Pathway breaks the actions down into four stages based on your sustainability maturity
To be truly Net Positive we must be taking action across people, planet, place and prosperity. Each stage encompasses core topics of:
- Efficient resource use
- Pollution minimisation
- Protection and regeneration of nature
- Fairness in the workplace
- Equitable and better opportunities
- Community partnerships and support
- Customer welfare
- Net Positive governance
Getting started
Use the guidance below to follow your journey to Net Positive Hospitality, no matter your starting point
Overview
An overview of the Pathway to Net Positive Hospitality, including guidance on understanding your impact, prioritising action and getting started with the four stages.
Framework
An outline of the core topics across environmental, social and governance, exploring the key actions for hotels for each stage.
Learn how to track your progress on the Pathway with the Net Positive Pathway tool
The Pathway Tool has been developed to help hotels measure their progress on the journey to a Net Positive future. It can be applied in four steps depending on data quality and availability. By following the four step process, hotels can first gain a general understanding of their progress and identify data gaps, then going on to consider regional relevance, run the assessment locally to account for regionality and, finally, aggregate the collected data to the corporate level.
Discover the Net Positive Hospitality Simulation
A new learning tool for hotels to understand the connection between environmental, social and governance issues, and ultimately test out the outcomes of different solutions and strategic decisions
The Net Positive Simulation has been developed to engage and upskill hospitality leaders and students, bringing Net Positive Hospitality to life and demonstrating how you can implement the Pathway. It helps users to understand the impacts of their decisions, test sustainability actions and create a tailored sustainability action plan.
Aligning the industry
The Pathway aims to align the industry behind the most material and crucial issues, leading towards the harmonisation of industry sustainability principles.
The Pathway has been created with insights from Members and Affiliate Members of the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance in consultation with sustainability and industry experts.
It aligns with the major industry standards, ratings and frameworks to lead towards the harmonisation of global metrics, including:
Industry frameworks
- WTTC Hotel Sustainability Basics
- Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism
- Global Business Travel Association RFP template
- Global Tourism Plastics Initiative (GTPI)
- Travalyst Accommodation Framework
Reporting
- Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
- European Sustainability Reporting Standards
- Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
- Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
- Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure
Certifications
- GSTC Industry Criteria
- Green Globe Standards
- Green Key Global
Global sustainability principles and standards
- ILO Labour Standards
- Net Positive Principles
- Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Sustainable Markets Initiative Terra Carta
- UN Global Compact
- UNWTO Ethics in Tourism
- WBA Social Transformation Framework
The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance would like to thank all those who offered their advice and expertise during the development of the Pathway.
Thanks to our member companies, Board and Councils who provided critical feedback to ensure this would be most relevant and useful to the industry.
We are grateful to several other organisations and experts for their input, support and peer review:
