Biodiversity: the natural capital of hotels 

Biodiversity plays an important role in the day-to-day life of a hotel:  from the food in the restaurant and wood in furniture and fittings, to the amenities in the spa, the products of biodiversity are everywhere inside hotels.  Outside, plants and animals make a hotel’s public areas and gardens attractive for guests, while beyond the hotel gate, national parks, green spaces, coasts and natural habitats provide guests with opportunities for recreation and enjoyment. 

Biodiversity is the foundation of life on Earth. It underpins the functioning of ecosystems from which we derive essential products and services (known as ecosystem goods and services) such as oxygen, food, fresh water and medicines. Healthy biodiversity is essential to human wellbeing, sustainable development, and poverty reduction. But people, particularly in the developed world, have become so far removed from nature that we have forgotten how much we rely on it.

Combining the Greek word for life, bios, with diversity, the term biodiversity refers simply to the vast variety of life on Earth.  This diversity is expressed in many ways, from the number of species of living organisms, to the variations between individuals of those species, to the variety of ways in which these species group together to form different habitats and ecosystems.  An ecosystem is the combination of living organisms and the physical environment in which they live.  Each main type of ecosystem – from forests, mountains, deserts and grasslands, to freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems – can be subdivided into more specific ecosystem categories according to their physical features and the types of organisms that inhabit them.

Read more about:

• What are the business benefits of adopting responsible biodiversity practices in your hotel?

·      How do hotels impact on biodiversity?

·      How can hoteliers take action? The IH&RA and IUCN Guide “Biodiversity: My hotel in action!”

·      What does biodiversity do for us?

·      What are the threats to biodiversity?

·      Download “Biodiversity: My hotel in action!”

•  
  • English: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_hotel_guide_final.pdf
  • French: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_hotel_fr_final_single_1.pdf
  • Japanese: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/biodiversity_my_hotel_in_action_jp.pdf

·      View the video “Biodiversity: My hotel in action!”

•  
  • English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3LdZKIw08
  • French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWP9TTIdNAQ&feature=related

·      About the International Union for Conservation of Nature

What are the business benefits of adopting responsible biodiversity practices in your hotel?

Implementing good environmental practices in hotel operations, including using biological resources more sustainably, can result in positive business benefits as well as make an important contribution to biodiversity conservation.  Key business benefits include:

• Appealing to engaged consumers:  Tourists are increasingly motivated by sustainability and contributions to biodiversity conservation, as well as healthier environments and products.

• Reducing costs:  Good biodiversity practices can actually lower a hotel’s operating costs, by reducing expenses for resource procurement, usage and disposal.

• Improving the quality of the destination:  Destinations rich in biodiversity are attractive places, appeal to quality customers, and offer scope for biodiversity-based recreational activities. 

• Improving employee productivity and sense of responsibility to the environment:  Employees are often strongly motivated by actions to enhance biodiversity; such motivation helps to increase employee productivity and loyalty, and can reduce staff turnover.

• Securing a hotel’s ‘license to operate’:  Implementing good practices for biodiversity demonstrates that a hotel cares about the environment and runs a responsible business, and can lead to increased support from government, staff and local communities.

• ·       Attracting investment from socially responsible investors:  Investors want to be sure that their funds are invested in businesses that have good environmental records.   

How do hotels impact on biodiversity? 

Each individual has a different impact on the environment.  The level of this impact will depend on personal choices and may well be scattered around the globe: food may be imported from other continents, water piped from rivers and reservoirs some distance away, and waste may be disposed miles away from its source.  The same is true for a hotel.

A hotel impacts biodiversity at each stage of its life cycle, from planning through to closure:  

• At the planning stage, the most important issue in determining the level of impact that a hotel will have relates to choices about its siting and design. Even the most sustainably operated hotel will have major impacts if it is built in a biodiversity-sensitive area. Choices about the materials that will be used to construct the hotel, where those materials will come from and the total physical footprint of the hotel will also influence how significant its impacts will be in the operational stage.

• At the construction stage, impact is determined by the size and location of the area cleared for development and where construction activities are taking place, the choice of construction methods, the sources and amount and type of materials, water and energy used to build the hotel, the location of temporary camps for construction workers, inadequate storage facilities for construction materials, the amount of construction waste that has to be disposed of, and other types of damage such as surface soil erosion or compaction caused by construction activities or disruption of natural water flows and drainage patterns.

• In the operational stage, a hotel’s impact comes mainly from the energy, water, food and other resources that are consumed in running the hotel, by the solid and liquid wastes it produces, by the way its grounds are managed, and by the direct impacts of its guests.  In addition, regular renovation and replacement of furniture, appliances and facilities can cause impacts through purchasing choices and increased waste generation.  Using energy and water more efficiently, using organic and sustainably produced food, reducing, treating and disposing of waste appropriately, making sustainable purchasing decisions and managing gardens with natural-style plantings can all help a hotel to reduce its adverse impacts on biodiversity.  Similarly, a hotel’s relationship with host communities not only affects the sustainable operations of the hotel but also the use of environmental resources by communities themselves.

• At the closure stage, a hotel’s impacts come from the disposal of materials removed from the hotel to refurbish it, convert it for other uses, or demolish it, and from the work involved in these activities.  It may be possible to reuse and recycle some materials, but there may also be some toxic materials, particularly from older buildings, which will require careful handling and management.  A responsible hotel operator should also foresee supporting activities of ecological restoration as required. 

How can hotels take action? The IH&RA and IUCN Guide “Biodiversity: My Hotel in Action!”

Despite this range of threats, there are solutions.  The causes of biodiversity loss need to be addressed by society as a whole, and we each have a part to play in meeting this challenge.  While much has been done to protect the environment and biodiversity in the last decades, there is still very much to do.  The key is to keep our uses of biodiversity and ecosystem services within sustainable limits.

Recognizing the many opportunities for action, IH&RA has joined forces with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Accor to develop the guide “Biodiversity: My Hotel in Action! A Guide to Sustainable Use of Natural Resources”.

The guide is structured around the main operational areas of a hotel: restaurants, public areas, including the spa, guest rooms, hotel souvenir shops, hotel grounds and gardens. It also covers the relationships a hotel can establish with the surrounding community. For each of these areas, the guide provides management tips focusing on what can be done internally, with the suppliers, with the clients and with the community.  The management tips are then complemented with technical fact sheets developed by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, listing conservation issues and advice on which species to choose and which to avoid.

Download “Biodiversity: My hotel in action!”

•  
  • English: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_hotel_guide_final.pdf
  • French: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_hotel_fr_final_single_1.pdf
  • Japanese: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/biodiversity_my_hotel_in_action_jp.pdf

View the video “Biodiversity: My hotel in action!”

•  
  • English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3LdZKIw08
  • French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWP9TTIdNAQ&feature=related

What does biodiversity do for us?

Biodiversity is essential for human life.  It provides human society with many important benefits and services:  for instance, insects pollinate our crops, birds disperse seeds, and fungi, worms and micro-organisms produce nutrients and fertile soils.  Interactions between organisms and the physical environment influence our climate, water supplies and air quality, and help protect us from extreme weather, including mitigation of natural disasters.  These benefits are collectively known as ecosystem services.  The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (http://www.millenniumassessment.org) describes four basic types of ecosystem services:

• Provisioning services:  These are the tangible products that biodiversity provides, including food, fresh water, fuel, and materials, such as wood for furniture and construction and fibre for clothing, as well as genetic resources for medicines and crop security;

• Regulating services:  These are the services that keep major ecological processes in balance, such as climate regulation, flood control, disease regulation and water purification;

• Cultural services:  These are the non-material values that humans derive from nature, including aesthetic, spiritual, educational and recreational benefits; and 

• Supporting services:  These are the services that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services, including biomass production, soil formation, nutrient cycling and provision of habitats.

All of these services are vital for our well-being, and it is just not possible to replace them with technology if they are damaged.  The only option that will conserve these benefits is for us to reduce our adverse impacts on the natural world, so that biodiversity and natural resources have a chance to recover.  Increasingly, ecosystems are being restored so that they can provide key services, in preference to man-made alternatives.  For example, restoration of coastal marshes and vegetation is used as an alternative to man-made sea defences in some areas, while protection of ecosystems in watersheds is now an important part of the management of freshwater supplies.  In agriculture, sustainable farming systems are replacing artificial fertilisers and pesticides with services provided by natural ecosystems.

What are the threats to biodiversity?

Although biodiversity provides our society with vital products and services, human activities are causing tremendous damage to ecosystems and species around the world.  Everything we consume, all we throw away, has an impact on biodiversity. 

There are a number of reasons for the overall loss of biodiversity that we now face, including:

• Climate change:  Human-induced climate change is altering temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, drought and similar factors that affect the distribution of plant and animal species throughout the world.  According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch), 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species assessed would be at risk of extinction if average global temperatures rise by more than 1.5-2 degrees Celsius.  Many species are already affected by warmer global temperatures:  for example, more frequent droughts are threatening wildlife in Africa and frequent storms and rising ocean temperatures are damaging and even killing corals around the world, while in the Arctic, polar bears are finding it more difficult to feed as the sea-ice breaks up earlier each year.

• Habitat conversion:  Through land-use changes and inappropriate occupation, physical modification of rivers or water withdrawal from rivers, loss of coral reefs, and damage to sea floors from trawling, about half of the Earth’s land surface has already been transformed or degraded by human activity.  The costs of decades of habitat conversion are now becoming all too apparent: for example, where forests have been cleared for timber and agriculture, or for infrastructure development, soil erodes faster and rivers flood more frequently.  The loss of critical habitats also adversely impacts many plant and animal species.

• Invasive species:  Non-native species introduced accidentally or deliberately (for example by using exotic species for gardening) into an ecosystem can cause major damage to ecosystem functions and populations of indigenous species through predation or by out-competing for key resources such as food, water or nesting sites.  One dramatic example of an invasive species is the cane toad: introduced into Australia to control beetles that were destroying sugar cane crops, the cane toads failed to control the beetles, but have caused major damage to indigenous Australian wildlife by eating small animals and poisoning larger predators that try to eat them. 

• Overexploitation:  The use of species, nutrients, water and other biological resources faster than they can be replenished by natural cycles of reproduction or replenishment can cause serious declines in species populations and resource availability.  The overuse of water resources in cities and tourism resorts and for intensive agriculture is threatening natural wetlands and groundwater levels.  Over-fishing has damaged stocks of fish in most of the world’s major fisheries.  On land, hunting has contributed to a specific number of species declines or extinctions in the last century, while many others continue to be threatened by illegal hunting today. 

• Pollution:  Chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides, air pollutants, wastewater and solid wastes can all cause damage to individual species and overall ecosystem functioning. Pollution from fertilisers and sewage can result in high nutrient concentrations in water, triggering algal blooms, a sequence of events which begins with rapid growth of algae that then die and decay, leaving behind dead zones in rivers, lakes and coastal waters and adversely impacting fauna and flora.  Other types of pollutants can mimic animal hormones and seriously affect the health and development of fish and amphibians.  Many of our landfills ooze polluted wastewater and produce gases that contribute to global warming.  Plastic debris and other wastes are found in most of the world’s oceans, where species may eat them by mistake or become tangled in them, with often fatal consequences. 

About the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Founded in 1948, IUCN (www.iucn.org ) brings together States, government agencies and a diverse range of non-governmental organizations in a unique world partnership: over 1000 members in all, spread across some 160 countries.

As a Union, IUCN seeks to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. A central Secretariat coordinates the IUCN Programme and serves the Union membership, representing their views on the world stage and providing them with the strategies, services, scientific knowledge and technical support they need to achieve their goals. Through its six Commissions, IUCN draws together almost 11,000 expert volunteers in project teams and action groups, focusing in particular on species and biodiversity conservation and the management of habitats and natural resources. The Union has helped many countries to prepare National Conservation Strategies, and demonstrates the application of its knowledge through the field projects it supervises. Operations are increasingly decentralized and are carried forward by an expanding network of regional and country offices, located principally in developing countries.

IUCN builds on the strengths of its members, networks and partners to enhance their capacity and to support global alliances to safeguard natural resources at local, regional and global levels.