Workman describes his team’s participation with third-party energy manager Schneider Electric as the best possible approach for his lean staff. Recently, the team completed the onboarding process of uploading data for energy and water usage into a Schneider platform that will function as a system-wide dashboard.
“As asset managers, energy procurement is not our specialty,” Hart says. “Schneider will be able to bring its massive workforce of energy analysts to focus on our properties and deliver a standard uniform approach across our platform. We are comfortable that across the board Schneider is driving results for us, augmenting the efforts of our third-party management companies.”
Besides tracking consumption in the hotels and measuring it against goals, Schneider will handle energy procurement and secure utility incentives. “This dashboard will flag exceptions for us,” Workman says. “Instead of us having to look over each of our 120-plus hotels in a given month’s billing cycle, we’re going to get flagged information on, say, eight or 10 hotels that we need to take a closer look at their usage.”
With 13 management companies spread across 120 properties (and growing), the platform’s management must align the interests of asset managers, management companies, and property operators. Workman says the group has achieved that alignment, which has been aided by a standardized playbook.
“We currently have six portfolios of hotels, and I’m sure we’ll continue to acquire additional hotels,” Hart says. “So, when we onboard a collection of hotels, we can provide this playbook: This is who we are, this is who we use for procurement, this is who we use for PTAC cleaning, and so on. Hopefully, we’re driving results from day one.”
Of course, there’s always room for improvement, and Pat Maher, principal of the engineering and environmental consultancy The Maher Group and former SVP engineering for Marriott International, is well aware of how difficult it can be to implement sustainability programs at the property level that satisfy all the interested parties. In assessing real estate companies in general, Maher says the industry has traditionally considered them less influential in sustainability. “It’s not their deal,” he says.
However, this is changing. Maher points to the sustainability programs of such real estate investors as Hersha Hospitality and Host Hotels. While they lack the sheer scale of Blackstone, Hersha and Host earn high marks from Maher for their early adoption of sustainability programs.
“Blackstone has been building in that direction,” he says. “Host has had its program in place for three or four years. Hersha’s CFO [Ashish R. Parikh] is passionate about sustainability and speaks around the country about it.” What makes Hersha’s company-wide sustainability program, EarthView, interesting is that it’s overseen by Bennett Thomas, VP of finance and sustainability, in recognition that financial gains and sustainability go hand-in-hand.
Maybe at one time hotel owners could forego any or all sustainability practices. No more, though. That changed in 2008 when the recession forced owners to rein in costs like never before. Make it a bottom-line issue, and owners will embrace it. Blackstone quickly discovered the merits of the savings that accrue to the bottom line. Of its hotel companies, Maher has strong praise for Hilton. “It’s been a brand other hotel operators look up to in particular in terms of sustainability,” he says. “Not just water but overall sustainability.”
As Hand summarizes her work with Blackstone, one aspect jumps out: the never-ending sustainability to-do list. “I’ve been at this a long time,” she says, “and there’s never been a property I’ve been to that didn’t have opportunities.
“It’s just a constant—there are always opportunities because of the turnover of properties and the need to retrain,” she says. “Just like everything else, you really need to stay on top of it. It’s just a matter of wrapping our arms around it. With this big comprehensive push across the board, we know we will achieve significant savings.”
