Environmental sustainability practices in the hotel industry in New Zealand

Purpose This paper analyses Environmental Sustainability (ES) policies of the hotel industry in New Zealand (NZ) and compares them with a recognised global standard - the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Design/methodology/approach The study considered ES policies of ten major hotel groups (consisting of 208 accommodation providers) in NZ and employed content data analysis using Leximancer software to identify the themes relating to ES and benchmark them against the GRI standards. Findings Firms in the sample are lagging behind in regard to ES practices in comparison to GRI. Firstly, they did not follow the global standard guidelines strictly in reporting their environmental impact; secondly, they have not quantified the impact or related reductions to environmental damage and thirdly, they did not cover all relevant impact areas as outlined by the GRI in reporting some ES initiatives already in place. Research limitations/implications The research findings are based on the content data from websites and their executions were not validated. In addition to GRI, there could be other global organisations that can be used for future research. Practical implications This study confirms the prior research findings on environmental impact in NZ, induced by tourism-hospitality sector, and provides an opportunity for the practitioners to reflect upon and develop environmental policies in line with global practices such as GRI. Originality/value Prior studies on analysing ES of the businesses in the hotel industry are scarce. To the best of our knowledge, no prior study has attempted to analyse online content data of the NZ hotel industry to examine sustainability policies and practices and compare them against any global standard.