Branding for a lodging property's environmental program

I created leaf logo to the left for Marriott, the main case study in my project. As you can see, the logo itself is made up of overlapping variations of Marriott's M circle logo. Branding an environmental program has the power to bring an identity to your cause and bring your associates and guests together around a common goal. Designed correctly, a logo can bring all those feelings together.

Managing Change for the better

We all love that cliche -- life is a journey, add in a dramatic rain effect with storm clouds in the background and a tearful hero/heroine and you've got yourself the next box office topping romantic comedy. However, the earth and all its inhabitats have taken a hard journey over the past year -- coal mine disasters in Chili and West Virginia, the deadly tsunami and earthquake in Japan, BP's Deepwater Rig explosion. Add in yet another cliche -- it's time to change for the better -- and you've got a world that needs to change but hasn't yet mastered how to do it.

Managing change is one of the hardest parts of hotel operations -- trust me, working in a restaurant and trying to roll out a new menu is both hilarious and infuriating (cooks will moan and groan and pretend not to see the new items on the ticket, servers will refuse to sell the new dishes, and management will have to deal with managing the change or see the menu crash and burn). Seeing as my project is focused on implementing a new green program, managing change is also one of the most important parts of successful green initiatives in the scope of my project.

We can preach change, make beautiful posters about change, and even create workshops on change. But, until we live it, study it, and know how we're going to manage it, we won't see the results we really need. First step, as always, is knowing the right questions to ask:

1) What behaviors are we trying to change?
2) How do those behaviors affect the goal?
3) What part of the problem can we help solve?
4) What do we want to achieve through this behavior change?
5) What's our short term plan?
6) What's our long term plan?
7) How can we involve all the stakeholders/parties? (guests, employees, management, executives, shareholders?)
8) What are the barriers to changing these behaviors?
9) What are the benefits to all the stakeholders?
10) What is the environment the change is occurring in? Is it conducive to change or do we need to change it and how?
11) What incentives can we provide? Rewards for good behavior?
12) What decisions lead to certain behaviors?
13) How will we quantify success?

It's common sense, exemplary performance and exemplary management produce all the tools needed for change management, you just have to be vigilant in leading change for the better...

What IS the hospitality of sustainability?

For those of you new to this blog, please check about the About the Project page. But for those too tired to click the mouse (yes, I admit it, I've been THAT tired before) here's a quick explanation about WHY sustainability is essentially hospitable.

This study is part of my Final Project towards my Masters in Sustainable Design but it has reaches far beyond the walls of a classroom. Why the hospitality industry you may ask? Why focus on hotels and restaurants? -- The Hospitality Industry is one of the world's largest export industries, present in every corner of the world (in the richest countries in the world and also in the poorest -- where you can't even step outside of the hotel compound due to violence and civil unrest; in the most populated and also the most remote -- cruises to Antartic anyone?; in landlocked countries and also on islands slowly sinking due to climate change). The sheer size, buying power, market influence, and overall reach of the industry represents a huge opportunity to initiate change.

Utilizing the spirit of service inherent in the sector I hope to initiate change through the power of simple hospitality. People helping people, service with a smile, service from the heart -- whatever slogan it goes by, the values are the same. The goal of this project is to create a environmental program/system built around the empowerment of individual associates - from line staff to management - to make a difference. In other words, building off of a hotel brand's core values in order to push sustainability forward through management to associates to the guests-- so those who live and breathe the brand and service can start to live and breathe sustainability in the communities around them.