Going Green Is Not Enough: Why Many Hotels Still Fail at Sustainable Hospitality
By Dr. Juliana Philip Ndalnamu Walk into almost any hotel today and you'll find the same laminated card propped against the bathroom mirror: "Help us save the planet, reuse your towel." It's a familiar ritual of modern travel, repeated in thousands of properties across the world. And it feels good. Guests nod along, hotels print it on their websites and everyone leaves believing something meaningful just happened for the environment. But here's the uncomfortable truth I've arrived at after years of researching sustainable hospitality: towel reuse is not sustainability. It's theatre. What My Research Has Revealed Over the past few years, my research has focused on understanding and estimating the environmental impacts of hospitality operations within the Nigerian context. Through my work on carbon footprint assessments in hotels, one finding has consistently emerged: The greatest environmental impacts are rarely the most visible ones. While many ho...