The Issue

Burton has long partnered with a boutique hotel ownership group, which operates a portfolio of 17 hotels in 9 states. Burton provides ongoing support through:

• Utility information management and performance reporting
• Deregulated energy contract management
• Energy and water efficiency strategy, including energy and water audits
• Turnkey project management services
• Sustainability initiatives and emissions reporting The hotel group was under mounting

pressure to match competitors’ sustainability initiatives. The challenge was finding a way to keep sustainability central to its operations while appealing to corporate clients, and without taking on an unrealistic or costly approach. Burton engaged the client on different strategies, including setting a Science[1]Based Target, investing in sustainable fuel sources, or purchasing carbon offsets

The Burton Solution

This client opted for a carbon offset program because it was the most cost-effective and attractive option for public companies seeking to meet their own sustainability commitments. Burton has an extensive network of trusted vendors that we can turn to in order to meet the unique needs of our clients. Burton relied on these connections to find opportunities for this hotel group to purchase carbon offsets. Ultimately, the client settled on a 1,000 MT CO2e purchase of carbon offsets generated by industrial refrigerant reclamation and recycling. This purchase enabled our client to establish a carbon offset bank and market offset certificates to its corporate partners as an incentive for booking hotel rooms, holding board meetings, or other company events.

Awarding carbon offset certificates to its customers meant our client would need to know the total emissions generated by each room night or hour spent in conference rooms. As a full-service client, Burton was already providing annual scope 1 and scope 2 reports for this hotel portfolio, so the next step was to model how much each booking would contribute to these emissions. Burton developed a custom carbon footprint calculator based on our stored data, looking at eight different emission metrics and specific to each hotel in our client’s portfolio. With data entry points such as the number of room nights, event space square footage, and the length of the event, our client can easily calculate the total footprint of any booking request. This can quickly be added to a price quote for any corporate partners interested in using the hotel and serves as an incentive for choosing our client’s hotels over a competitor. Burton works with the carbon offset provider to generate the certificates for each customer our client would like to award offsets to. Burton also logs each transaction, noting the event, company, and total offsets awarded to keep track of the remaining balance in our customer’s carbon offset bank. With Burton’s help, our client has successfully awarded carbon offset certificates to 11 major companies for various events held at their hotels, including 1,050 room nights.