Sustainability is Everywhere: Except in Hospitality Culture

After four decades of sustainability discourse, the hospitality industry has built strong systems, standards, and certifications. Yet sustainability still struggles to survive beyond policies, failing to embed itself into daily behavior, employee motivation, and guest culture.

For nearly forty years, sustainability has been a recurring promise within the hospitality industry. During this time, hotels and resorts have invested heavily in environmental standards, certification programs, and ESG reporting frameworks. According to the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2021), hospitality is among the sectors that have most rapidly adopted sustainability frameworks and voluntary commitments. On paper, the industry appears well equipped. In practice, however, sustainability often remains something that is managed, not lived.

Hospitality has largely approached sustainability as a systems and compliance challenge rather than a cultural one. Certifications such as Green Key, LEED, or EarthCheck have become widespread, and sustainability performance is increasingly communicated through annual reports and brand messaging. Yet research by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC, 2022) highlights a persistent gap between sustainability commitments and behavioral change at the operational level. Visibility has increased, but internalization has not.

This gap is most evident on the frontline. Hospitality employees operate in environments characterized by high workloads, high turnover, and limited decision-making autonomy. Deloitte’s research on human sustainability suggests that when sustainability initiatives are perceived as additional tasks rather than meaningful contributions, employee engagement declines rapidly (Deloitte, 2023). Training alone is insufficient. Without continuous reinforcement, feedback, or recognition, sustainable behaviors gradually fade.

Behavioral science supports this pattern. McKinsey’s work on ESG transformation notes that employee motivation weakens when individuals cannot see the impact of their actions or connect sustainability goals to their daily responsibilities (McKinsey & Company, 2021). In hospitality, sustainability is often framed as a set of rules rather than a shared purpose. As a result, compliance may occur temporarily, but ownership rarely develops. Sustainability fatigue follows.

Guests are positioned no differently. Most hospitality sustainability efforts ask guests to participate in limited, transactional actions: reusing towels, reducing energy consumption, or following simple prompts. While well intentioned, these measures rarely communicate context or impact. Harvard Business Review argues that sustainability initiatives fail when stakeholders are treated as passive participants rather than active contributors (Norton et al., 2018). When sustainability disappears the moment a guest checks out, it struggles to qualify as culture.

Industry data increasingly reflects this disconnect. WTTC (2022) and UNWTO (2021) reports consistently show strong progress in sustainability adoption, yet far weaker evidence of long-term behavioral change among employees and guests. The challenge facing hospitality is no longer awareness or intent, but cultural embedding.

Sustainability cannot survive as a department, a certification, or a marketing narrative. It must be experienced through daily decisions, micro-behaviors, and shared meaning. Until hospitality shifts its focus from managing sustainability systems to cultivating sustainable culture, the industry risks remaining sustainable in theory, but not in practice.

For hospitality leaders and managers, the path forward is clear: sustainability cannot remain a policy or a certificate; it must be woven into the daily fabric of work and guest experience. This means creating systems that reward and recognize sustainable behavior, providing continuous feedback loops, and connecting employees and guests to the tangible impact of their actions. Leaders should act as role models, embedding sustainability into decision-making, training, and storytelling. By transforming sustainability from a checkbox into a shared purpose, hospitality can cultivate a culture where environmental and social responsibility is not just seen on paper — it is lived, experienced, and perpetuated across every interaction.

References

Deloitte. (2023). Global human sustainability report: Advancing workforce engagement in ESG strategies. Deloitte Insights.

McKinsey & Company. (2021). The ESG premium: New perspectives on value and performance. McKinsey Global Institute.

Norton, T. A., Zacher, H., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2018). Organizational sustainability policies and employee green behavior: The mediating role of work climate perceptions. Harvard Business Review.

UN World Tourism Organization. (2021). Tourism and sustainable development: Progress and challenges. UNWTO.

World Travel & Tourism Council. (2022). Environmental and social research: Bridging commitments and operational impact. WTTC.