HRS’ Green Stay Initiative Wins Four Sustainability Awards

HRS’ Green Stay Initiative Wins Multiple Sustainability Awards in May

Pioneering Technology is Driving Millions of Corporate Hotel Bookings to Green Hotels Worldwide

Cologne, Germany – 5 June 2023 – HRS, the leading global corporate lodging and payment technology platform, won four prominent awards for its innovative Green Stay Initiative (GSI) in May. The technology enables corporate hotel procurement leaders to efficiently view and consider sustainability metrics and information amid other categories (i.e. room rates, amenities, etc.) as they make preferred supplier choices.

A mere two years after launch, the easy-to-use automation is having a tangible impact on hotel procurement and booking. Based on projections drawn from bookings made in the first five months of the year, HRS clients will reserve an additional 2.5 million room nights on top of 2022 totals at GSI-rated hotels worldwide. A consistently growing number of Fortune 500 companies use the Green Stay Initiative as part of their hotel procurement processes across the globe, with some even mandating its use. (See Siemens example here.)

Business Travel News and SEAL Awards Highlight Impact of HRS’ Green Stay Initiative on Global Corporate Lodging Ecosystem

The month of May was a milestone for HRS with recognition from two prominent organizations.

Business Travel News staged its inaugural Sustainability Awards for the Americas this quarter, featuring a two-part entry process and judges including corporate travel leaders and ESG experts. HRS won for each of the three categories it submitted.

Highlights from comments shared at the awards event in New York City:

• Achievement in Sustainable Innovation: “The Green Stay Initiative addresses a big gap in the hotel industry. It received high marks for market penetration and global adoption, and it has significant data to support the reduction of CO2 emissions.”
• Achievement in Advancing Sustainability Data & Reporting: “The judges commended (GSI) for the strongest annual results and specific metrics in a much-needed vertical market that helps drive the entire industry forward in the area of sustainable data and reporting for the accommodation sector.”
• Sustainability Champion: HRS CEO Tobias Ragge won this prestigious executive honor. “Tobias Ragge has been extremely visible in our industry, promoting and supporting sustainability efforts and making sustainability topics a priority. Despite the tight budgetary climate in the industry, he continues to make sustainability a priority both through internal company efforts and via offerings to HRS customers by allocating funds and resources to its products.”

The SEAL organization, a global group that celebrates companies making measurable contributions to sustainability, also honored the Green Stay Initiative in May. GSI won a SEAL Sustainable Service Award, recognizing HRS for “innovative services that set a new standard for sustainability.”

Data Tells the Story: Hotels Sharing Sustainability Metrics in RFPs are More Likely to Earn Preferred Supplier Status from Corporations

As corporate bookings continue to recover from the depths of the pandemic, HRS sees a corresponding impact via the hotel supplier community when reviewing cumulative RFP results over the past year.

• In scenarios where a GSI-rated hotel was included in an RFP, they were chosen to be a preferred supplier 78 percent of the time.
• GSI-rated hotels have a 31 percent higher success rate in RFPs than non-GSI-rated hotels, a competitive advantage that has doubled year-over-year.

The importance of sustainability and measuring carbon emission reduction grows in priority among executive suites around the world. Increasingly, more governments are issuing proclamations requiring corporations to report their progress on reducing carbon emissions. The most recent example is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, adopted by the European Union parliament in November 2022. This EU-wide regulation, mandating “more detailed reporting,” begins in January 2024. A similar announcement from the USA’s Security and Exchange Commission, affecting USA-based public companies, is anticipated in the months ahead.  

“It is rewarding to see the hard work of my HRS colleagues recognized via these awards,” said HRS CEO Tobias Ragge. “I also tip my hat to our many clients and hotel partners for their everyday participation in the deployment, use and refinement of this important automation. Collaboratively, we are blazing a remarkable trail that illustrates how technology can drive meaningful change and action that will help keep our planet safe for generations to come.”

Corporate hotel program leaders, hotel executives and media can learn more about the impact of sustainability-related trends in lodging procurement via this recent report from HRS.

About HRS 

HRS is reinventing how businesses and governments work, stay and pay in today’s evolving global marketplace. Our technology brings together hotel procurement, booking, payment and reconciliation data to drive newfound transparency and savings for program management while making everyday business travel better for employees. HRS’ unique platform approach to corporate lodging elevates hotel automation to new heights, while the company’s award-winning Green Stay Initiative technology helps companies achieve their climate targets. Find out more about why one-third of the Fortune 500 work with us today at www.hrs.com/enterprise and follow HRS on LinkedIn.