Episode 5: Paulina Bohdanowicz-Godfrey, Hilton

Hilton has 5,500 hotels worldwide, with another 2,700 properties in development. And Hilton plans to make all of them sustainable and is very well on its way. Paulina Bohdanowicz-Godfrey, Senior Director of Energy & Environment EMEA at Hilton, joined Marina Franolic for the fifth episode of the IDEEA podcast. In their conversation, Paulina shed light on the pillars of Hilton’s ESG strategy called Travel with Purpose and the accelerated progress the hospitality group is making towards its 2030 goals. There are so many vital insights she shares as a teaser to her panel session at IDEEA with other sustainability leaders on day two of the forum. Marina also asked Paulina to shed some light on Hilton's top-class sustainability initiative, LightStay. The group launched LightStay in 2009, so its managed and franchised hotels could report energy, water, waste and social impact data (including volunteerism and food donations) every month. Over the years, Hilton’s LightStay platform has gained three International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certifications for quality, energy and environmental management. There is no silver bullet for sustainability, but when asked to name some quick wins for hotels to adapt, a top one was awareness and behaviour. Without a full buy-in across its hospitality ecosystem, the goals will fall short of their mark. After the fanfare of sustainability initiatives, many tend to return to their old behaviours and routines. Hilton is ensuring it does not succumb to that egging on even travel managers for corporate clients to input ESG data into Lightstay for a better view of their environmental impact. This 30-minute conversation is worth watching or listening to if sustainability in hospitality is your tea.