How Can Certified Sustainable Hotels Unlock Their Next Efficiency Gains? What we learned in Egypt.
- Jo Hendrickx
- Dec 15, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 16, 2025
Before you dive in, here’s the essence of what this story is about.
You’ll read how working with already high-performing, already certified hotels in Egypt confirmed something important: that going beyond certification isn’t about doing more, it’s about sharpening the focus.
You’ll see:
why starting with profitability changed the workshop dynamic
how reframing waste as a business decision shifted mindsets
and why guests and staff behaviours are still the missing piece, even in advanced hotels.
And ultimately, you’ll see why clarity, not complexity, is what helps hotels progress..
When we were asked to run a sustainability workshop for hotels in Egypt, I have to admit that I was a little concerned about how we would add value to properties that already have strong sustainability systems in place. These were experienced teams, many with certifications, dedicated sustainability managers and years of initiatives under their belts.
After mulling it over for a while, I decided that our role wasn't to bring something bigger, newer, or more technical. It was about bringing the people into the space that we occupy as auditors and advisers. As an outsider, we see the patterns others don’t always spot, the small inefficiencies, the missed opportunities, the habits that have quietly become normal even in really well-run properties.
So we used our workshop to open the door to that perspective.
The agenda was packed and it was hard to fit everything in, but the thinking behind it was actually quite simple: to remove the distance between sustainability as a concept and the day-to-day reality of hotel operations. As usual with our approach, everything we shared was practical, operational, and relatively easy to implement. Nothing was rocket science, yet it still shifted mindsets.
And the feedback reflected exactly that. Several hotel managers, technical supervisors and sustainability managers told us that the workshop really did open their eyes, that they walked away with ideas they hadn’t considered, and that they had a new appreciation for how small actions could take them much further than they’d realised.
Here’s what we think made the day work...
Starting with money, not messaging
We opened with a hard look at profitability and how hotels are still wasting money without noticing, even when they think they’ve covered their bases. Using the “Money We Could Still Be Wasting” checklist, people were ticking boxes at surprising speed and it set the tone that sometimes the biggest wins come from the smallest tweaks to SOPs and services.
We devised some scenarios so that they could build on this and had created some (almost) fictional “breaking news alerts” positioned as real issues in their own hotels like sudden spikes in energy bills, water shortages and value chain disruptions. We also created some 'future headlines' that could threaten their long-term competitiveness and asked them to look back at what could have been done to be more prepared. It made people think beyond today’s invoices and look at the risks they may be sleepwalking into if they don’t keep evolving.
Case studies from the Jasmine Palace and the ORASCOM group were the perfect bridge to ground conversations in local challenges, local costs, and local solutions.
I think my favourite session was Waste Is A Business Decision.
Not waste in terms of litter, but as the result of operational choices.
We broke it into three parts:
Single-use plastics
Chemicals and hazardous materials
Food waste
Each section brought people back to the same realisation: waste doesn’t start in the bin. It starts with purchasing, menu planning, storage, staff routines, and how different teams communicate with one another.
None of this was “advanced sustainability.” It was about looking again at things that people thought were already working fine.
The food waste session in particular created a shift. When teams realised that significant time and money are in those waste bins, and when our interactive table exercises demonstrated how much water and carbon is embodied in everyday ingredients, they could suddenly connect kitchen decisions with much bigger impacts. And for properties already doing a lot, this was exactly the kind of “next step” they were looking for, something that deepened their existing actions without requiring huge investments.
Guests and staff: the missing piece
By the afternoon, we moved into the part that often gets overlooked even in certified hotels: communication and behaviour.
We explored guest touch points from pre-arrival to checkout, looking at how hotels can guide behaviour without lecturing, and how they can avoid unintentional greenwash while still telling their story confidently. The “Would This Pass the Test?” activity sparked brilliant debates especially because many people realised that even strong hotels sometimes send mixed messages without meaning to.
Then we brought the focus onto staff. In many hotels, sustainability sits with a manager or a department, even when the actions rely on everyone else too. The "Everyone Has A Role To Play" exercise helped highlight the gaps between the sustainability ambition and what frontline teams actually see, feel, and have time for. It also reminded people that staff engagement isn’t just about awareness, it’s about value and contribution. When people understand how they make a difference, they tend to do it well.
Why the workshop succeeded
What the participants appreciated most wasn’t a grand new framework. It was clarity.
They realised that they didn’t need to overhaul their systems to go beyond certification. They simply needed to sharpen the way they observe their own operations, question old assumptions, and reconnect sustainability with the practical reality of daily work.
They valued that we weren’t trying to “teach.” We were sharing what we see in hundreds of hotels every year, the common blind spots, the easy wins, and the small actions that quietly add up to major impact.
And because everything was grounded in their own context (Egyptian costs, Egyptian infrastructure, the guest demographic), the ideas felt achievable.
A final reflection
Working with hotels who are already performing well is actually a privilege. It pushed our team to raise the bar too and to think about real-world opportunities that only show up when we put ourselves in the shoes of hoteliers and invite them into ours.
What this all means
If there’s one thing this workshop confirmed, it’s this:
Even the strongest hotels still have untapped opportunities, not in complicated systems, but in everyday operations.
Starting with money captures the attention of most people as they realise the financial impact of hidden opportunities.
Reframing waste exposes decisions, not mistakes.
And focusing on people, guests and staff, unlocks impact that no certification alone can create.
Beyond certification isn’t about doing more.
It’s about understanding what matters and sharpening your focus.
Even strong sustainability programmes have blind spots. If it’s useful, we offer a short, free gap analysis to give an outside perspective on where everyday barriers may be getting in the way.
Email us to request a gap analysis on jo@tripleimpacthospitality.com
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