FAQ

CHSB, short form for the Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking, is an industry-led global data collection and benchmarking initiative focused on energy, water, and carbon emissions from hotels around the world.

With participation from over 27,000 hotels around the world from 42 companies in the latest cycle, CHSB2024, the dataset covers a total of 1,011 geographies (78 countries, 84 regions, 664 market areas, 185 climate zones).

Started in 2013, CHSB is a joint initiative between Greenview and Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, supported by an Industry Advisory group of hospitality experts from the following hospitality companies:

• Accor
• Four Seasons
• Hilton
• Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels
• Hyatt
• IHG
• Mandarin Oriental
• Marriott
• Radisson
• Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

CHSB is open to hotels of all sizes and types. Participants can fall into more than one of the five categories:

• Single hotel.
• Hotel operators or brands with a portfolio of hotels.
• Hotel franchisees with one or more hotels.
• Destinations. This refers to entities representing or working at a destination level such as ministries of tourism, and hotel associations.

1. Benchmark your performance against peers. Confidentially benchmark and compare the performance of your hotel or portfolio of hotels among peers within your market and segments.
2. Carbon footprint calculations, including HCMI. Receive an accurate carbon footprint of each property, uniformly. Calculations include HCMI for providing information to your guests and customers.
3. Validity testing for your data. Validity tests are performed on the data sets submitted, which can be used to identify and address data integrity issues.
4. Conduct a deeper analysis of your performance. Strengthen your internal modeling for performance evaluation, armed with comparisons and ranges outside your portfolio.
5. Be part of the movement and contribute to the sustainability of the global hospitality industry. Major industry leaders have supported CHSB for years. CHSB ensures that participants receive recognition for contributing to industry benchmarks.

By participating in CHSB, you will receive:

1. 1. One round of validity testing of the data received.
   2. A confidential benchmarking report for each hotel, and an aggregated Excel report that compiles the results of all properties if more than 10 hotels are submitted. Each report will contain greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water calculations, intensity metrics, and all geocoded property identifiers.
   3. Recognition via the listing of your company logo in the published trends and guidance report made available through the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, as well as other CHSB communications.

Data submitted will be managed by Greenview, kept confidential, and will not be distributed to or used by another party, without written consent of the Organization for the intended Purpose of distribution. All participating hotels will be anonymized to maintain data privacy.

There are 3 main types of data required for benchmarking:

1. Location attributes.
   1. Hotel name
   2. Address
   3. City
   4. State
   5. Postal code
   6. Country
2. Hotel attributes.
   1. Brand flag
   2. STR Market Segment
   3. Asset class
   4. Hotel type (resort or non-resort)
   5. Hotel sub-group (beach resort, ski resort, integrated resort, all-inclusive resort, other resorts, extended stay hotel, airport hotel, bed and breakfast, convention hotel, lifestyle hotel, or all other hotel)
   6. Hotel operational type (year-long or seasonal)
   7. Room count
   8. Floor area breakdown
   9. Whether laundry is done onsite or outsourced offsite.
3. Monthly or annual environmental and operations data.
   1. Energy usage
   2. Water usage
   3. Waste generated
   4. Occupied rooms

There are 5 simple steps to participate in CHSB:

1. Sign up. Fill in the participation form and submit it to data@greenview.sg. Submission for CHSB2025 (2023 data) is now open until August 31st, 2024.
2. Submit data. Upon submitting the participation form, Greenview will send you a Data Collection Form for you to fill up your hotel attributes, occupied rooms data, and environmental data (energy, water, and waste data).
3. Pay fee. To ensure timely receipt of the validity test reports, please pay the fee upon receiving the invoice from Greenview.
4. Receive and review the Validity Test Report. Review and update any data with gaps or inaccuracies raised in the report. Submit the data updates to data@greenview.sg within two weeks from the date you receive the report.
5. Receive Benchmarking Report.

You can submit data for 2019, 2021, and 2022 for benchmarks and metrics calculations.

• 2019 data will be benchmarked against the 2019 dataset from CHSB2021.
• 2020 benchmarks are not available due to COVID.
• 2021 data will be benchmarked against the 2021 dataset from CHSB2023.
• 2022 data will be benchmarked against the 2022 dataset from CHSB2024.
  • The official data collection cycle for CHSB2024 has now closed but we can still benchmark your 2022 data.
  • The data that you submit will not be included in the benchmarking dataset.

You are not required to provide data for all hotels, though it is encouraged, as participants benefit from incrementally larger portfolios in terms of per-property participation fees.

Participation fees are outlined in the participation form and are based on the number of hotels in your portfolio. The more hotels in your portfolio, the lower the participation fee per property.

The fees will help support the maintenance and operation of CHSB.

There are 12 benchmarked metrics, including:

• Measure 1: Carbon footprint of 1 room-night stay, per the HCMI[1] methodology
• Measure 2: Total carbon footprint of a property for the calendar year, divided by its number of rooms.
• Measure 3: Total carbon footprint of a property for the calendar year, divided by its number of occupied rooms within the same calendar year period.
• Measure 4: Total carbon footprint of a property for the calendar year, divided by its total floor area in square meters.
• Measure 5: Total energy usage of a property for the calendar year, divided by its number of occupied rooms within the same calendar year period.
• Measure 6: Total energy usage of a property for the calendar year, divided by its floor area in square meters.
• Measure 7: Carbon footprint of 1 square meter of meeting space occupied for 1 hour, per the HCMI¹
• Measure 8: Total water usage of a property for the calendar year, divided by its total number of occupied rooms within the same calendar year period.
• Measure 9: Total water usage of a property for the calendar year, divided by its floor area in square meters.
• Measure 10: Water usage of 1 room night stay, per the HWMI[2]
• Measure 11: Water usage of 1 square meter of meeting space occupied for 1 hour, per the HWMI methodology.
• Measure 12: Percentage of a property’s total energy usage within the calendar year that was generated onsite from renewable sources.

[1] HCMI (Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative) is the industry-accepted way to measure and compare scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions of hotels. It includes emissions related to fuels burnt on site (e.g., in gas boilers and company vehicles) and electricity used on site. It also accounts for emissions related to any outsourced laundry and refrigerants (e.g., used in air conditioning). For more information please visit the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance website.

[2] HWMI (Hotel Water Measurement Initiative) is the industry-accepted way to measure and compare water consumption. It includes metered (e.g., municipal) and unmetered (e.g., borehole) sources of water used by a hotel and also accounts for water used by any outsourced laundry providers. Hotels can use HWMI to calculate their water footprint per occupied room (per night) and the water footprint of an area of meeting space per hour. For more information please visit the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance website.

CHSB data for the benchmarking dataset is collected annually, from March to August of every year. The ongoing cycle will collect data from the previous year. E.g., 2023 data is collected in 2024.

You can still get benchmarks even if you have missed the data submission period. Data submitted outside of the data collection period will not be included in the benchmarking dataset.

For every cycle of CHSB, a Guidance Document and an Index Tool will be publicly available, which can be accessed through the Cornell University Library or the Greenview website.

• CHSB Guidance Document provides global trends in energy, water, and carbon emission performances.
• CHSB Index Tool provides geography-specific metrics for energy, water, and carbon emission performances, as well as a statistical summary of each sample (count of hotels, low, lower quartile, mean, median, upper quartile, high, and standard deviation).

Use the median as the more accurate description of the central values of the CHSB dataset. While both the median and mean are measures of central tendency, the median is appropriate because it is not influenced by extreme values in the dataset.

CHSB data is used by governments, corporate customers, travel management companies and numerous other organizations to determine benchmarks and estimates for energy and water usage, and carbon footprints.

• Hotel Owners and Hotel Operators: Allow peer benchmarking and drive for performance enhancement.
• Business Travel: Use data set to estimate carbon emissions of hotel stay for company or client Scope 3 emissions or offsetting.
• Policy Makers: Incorporate emissions factors into emissions calculation and reporting guidance of their jurisdictions.
• Carbon Offsetting: CHSB supplies real data to the Greenview Hotel Footprinting Tool to estimate the carbon footprint of a single or for multiple hotel room nights and meeting spaces across the world. This information can be used to calculate a company’s business travel hotel stay carbon footprint for Scope 3 reporting and offsetting, or provide information for clients on whose behalf you are booking or offsetting travel.
• Destinations: Monitor progress and benchmark hotel performance in the destination via the regional segmentation feature of CHSB Dataset.

Please use the following citation:

• Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Index [Year], https://greenview.sg/services/chsb-index/, retrieved [date].
• Example: Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Index 2024, https://greenview.sg/services/chsb-index/, retrieved 30 April 2024.

Please email us at info@greenview.sg and we will be happy to answer your questions about CHSB.