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Unlike energy and water, which benefit from smart meters, utility portals, and early stage standardized ESG reporting, hotel waste management is fragmented and poorly tracked. Trash leaves the loading dock and, for most properties, disappears into a black hole of inconsistent data, unreliable hauler reports, and mounting climate liabilities.

At Audubon International, our Green Hospitality Certification programs use up-to-date scientific standards for evaluating the efforts of operators for hotels and resorts. These primary areas of focus therefore include communication, community, energy, water, waste, chemicals, and indoor air quality. We require benchmarking data wherever possible, and, when not available, very best estimates. Without baseline metrics there can be no verifiable manner to drive measurable impact or progress.  The fact is that today, without question, waste consistently has the least quality of data and reporting. This is an area of growing concern.

That blind spot has significant consequences. Landfills in each locality are not well understood, and the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., with food waste as the biggest driver. Methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years, and new satellite studies suggest landfill emissions are far worse than previously measured.

To ever consider that the Hospitality Industry can achieve getting a 360-degree focus on a workable sustainability framework – from purchasing supply chain challenges to waste streams on the backend – we have our work cut out for us. For hotels, which generate large amounts of food, packaging and other waste, continuing to ignore the problem just isn’t an option.

Why Waste Still Lags Behind

Hotels globally face unique challenges in managing their waste footprint. In Puerto Rico the infrastructure is inconsistent between communities, and in the Caribbean as a whole, landfill options are meek. The U.S. provides a striking large-scale developed country example: more than 140,000 overlapping jurisdictions govern landfills, alongside thousands of private haulers. This fractured system makes consistency nearly impossible.

Even within hotel portfolios, waste reporting varies widely. Common challenges include:

• Manual data entry that is slow, inconsistent, and error-prone
• No universal terminology, making comparisons difficult
• Different reporting rules across jurisdictions
• Small-scale haulers with limited IT infrastructure
• Weak verification, leaving data open to question

A Step Forward: Standardizing Waste Data

To address this, the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, working with Greenview and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), developed the Hotel Waste Measurement Methodology (HWMM). This framework provides a standardized way to define waste streams, calculate diversion rates, and set reduction goals across properties and regions.

For hotel groups managing diverse portfolios, HWMM is a breakthrough. But adopting it requires more than a guide—it requires scalable, affordable tools to implement at property and corporate levels.

Turning Methodology into Action

One example of innovation in this space is Z3 Data, a software-enabled service platform designed to help hotels automate waste tracking. Its approach addresses many of the industry’s pain points:

• Automated invoice processing eliminates manual entry
• Centralized property-level reporting creates portfolio-wide visibility
• Analytics tools provide insights on diversion, emissions, and cost anomalies
• ESG integration ensures waste reporting aligns with energy and water metrics
• Auditable records allow third parties to verify performance

By supporting adoption of HWMM, solutions like Z3 Data elevate waste tracking to the same level of credibility as energy and water reporting—finally giving hotels a way to close their biggest sustainability gap.

The Bigger Picture: Why It Matters

Even with better tools, hoteliers can’t overlook the broader risks landfills pose. Three stand out:

1. Methane
Food waste is driving landfill methane emissions, making waste diversion a climate priority. Hotels, with their large foodservice operations, have a direct and powerful  role to play.

2. PFAS
Landfills are sinks for PFAS—the “forever chemicals” used in textiles, cosmetics, and packaging. These chemicals migrate into leachate and gas, raising water contamination risks and future liabilities. Hotels must begin reviewing supply chains and purchasing policies.

3. Hidden Costs
At $56–$58 per ton, landfill tipping fees appear low. But these prices fail to capture the long-term costs of methane, PFAS, and wasted resources. In reality, “cheap” disposal discourages innovation and perpetuates risk.

What Hotels Can Do Now

For hospitality leaders, waste management must shift from a back-of-house issue to a boardroom priority. Key steps include:

• Make food waste diversion a core climate strategy. Treat organics reduction like energy efficiency—critical to emissions goals.
• Adopt standardized tracking. Use HWMM to align waste data with global standards.
• Leverage technology. Deploy tools that automate collection, improve accuracy, and integrate with ESG reporting.
• Review purchasing policies. Begin phasing PFAS-containing products and other like elements out of hotel purchasing supply chains.
• Use data to drive savings and find opportunities. Identify inefficiencies in hauling, diversion, and recycling to reduce both costs and emissions.

Waste has long been hospitality’s forgotten metric, hidden behind the loading dock. But that blind spot is no longer sustainable. With climate impacts mounting, PFAS risks rising, and investor scrutiny intensifying, waste data must be treated with the same rigor as energy and water.

The good news? The tools now exist. Standardized frameworks like HWMM, combined with scalable platforms like Z3 Data, can give hoteliers the credible, auditable waste reporting they’ve been missing.

The hospitality sector has always been capable of leading change—from phasing out single-use plastics to influencing global supply chains. Waste is the next frontier. And for hotels, fixing this blind spot isn’t just good sustainability—it’s good business.

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About Audubon International
An environmentally focused non-profit organization, Audubon International offers members numerous certifications and conservation initiatives to protect the areas where we all live, work, and play. Its certifications are designed to increase environmental awareness, encourage sustainable environmental efforts, and educate both its members and their communities.

Media Contact:
Vic Williams
Dan Shepherd Public Relations
for Audubon International
LinkedIn
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