Wyndham Hotels and Resorts: Wyndham Green Program

Wyndham Green consists of two components: the Wyndham Green Toolbox and Wyndham Green Certification. Together, these components allow Wyndham to measure impact, while aiming for continuous improvement across Wyndham properties.

The Wyndham Green Toolbox is an online environmental management system, specifically designed to track, measure and report on global performance in energy, emissions, water consumption and waste diversion. The Toolbox helps to hold franchisees accountable to their progress by showing their improvements and areas of opportunity over time, so they can continue to refine and improve their approach to sustainability. These data-driven insights allow Wyndham to identify risks and challenges in various markets to help ensure that all franchisees are striving toward Wyndham’s performance targets. Wyndham franchisees can also track and measure their impact and benchmark their progress, which helps them to reduce operating costs and make a lasting impact in their communities.

The Wyndham Green Certification is Wyndham’s five level internal certification program, each with five to seven elements that address goals including energy and water conservation, waste diversion and operational efficiency, as well as guest, team member and franchisee education and engagement. The Certification aligns with popular external programs, such as TripAdvisor Green Leaders® and Green Key®, which provide common sense initiatives that parallel building certification programs such as LEED®. The first three levels prioritize quick-payback efficiency measures, some of which are no-cost to low-cost.

For example, a Level 1 Core-certified property has adopted towel and linen reuse, interior energy-efficient lighting, recycling, guest communication and property education around sustainability and utility tracking. Achieving Level 1 Core is also a Wyndham brand standard for all properties globally. Further, a Level 5 Expert property includes water-efficient flush fixtures in guest rooms, water-efficient irrigation control, advanced preventative maintenance, food waste compost and single-use plastic minimization in addition to criteria for all four lower levels.

Wyndham is working to fully integrate the Wyndham Green Program throughout all parts of its business by engaging and educating executives and brand leaders, team members, design and construction partners, franchisees, suppliers, and industry organizations. The Wyndham Green Program’s combination of industry best practices and stakeholder engagement aims to deliver triple bottom line results benefiting people, planet and profits.

Sustainability is not a one-size-fits all conversation, so Wyndham values the importance of following a consultative approach. In addition to providing resources through Wyndham Green, Wyndham also hosts green “office hours” to help guide franchisees on a more one-on-one basis, including helping to identify the right vendors to source products and services with through its Sourcing team.

Wyndham maintains ongoing conversations with its franchisees about how to grow, evolve and improve sustainability efforts. This also includes continuous outreach and education to all parts of the business by engaging and educating leadership, brand leaders and other team members to reinforce the value of sustainable practices. In addition, Wyndham sought feedback and buy-in on Wyndham Green from its Franchise Advisory Councils. This council is a select group of franchisees that collaborate with brand leaders to help drive the direction and strategy of each brand, before launching this initiative.

Some ways Wyndham is tracking its progress include:

• The Wyndham Green Certification allows Wyndham to clearly identify success and track improvement across Wyndham properties.
• The Wyndham Green Toolbox measures environmental metrics across Wyndham’s portfolio to track and display progress toward corporate goals.

Since Wyndham Green’s inception in 2019, Wyndham has certified many of its hotels for meeting the criteria of the five-level program. Several franchised hotels have even achieved the highest certification, Level 5 Expert, further demonstrating their commitment to sustainability by incorporating activities like single-use plastic minimization programs, food waste composting, and water-efficient flush fixtures in guest rooms.

In terms of long-term progress, Wyndham is ahead of schedule on its 2025 performance target of 15% absolute emissions reduction with 11% reduction in its Scope 1 and 2 emissions since its 2019 base year – and Wyndham continues to encourage increased engagement with franchisees through Wyndham Green to help drive these business targets further.

As more franchisees embark on their sustainability journey through the Wyndham Green Certification, they will recognize operational savings through efficiencies and increased revenues from environmentally conscious travelers. Many of the elements in the first three levels of the certification were intentionally designed to provide a quick impact – high ROI with little- to no-cost required.