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Woman Of Impact: Turning The Hospitality Industry Green
With 22 million employed in the business, going green is a challenge.
by Allison Shirreffs
July 1, 2008
D
ebra "Debby" Cannon understands the power of numbers. Cannon's experience in human
resource management at both the Hyatt Hotels and at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. has helped her
become a major player in the greening of Atlanta's hospitality industry through her current role as
director of the Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality Administration at Georgia State University's J.
Mack Robinson College of Business.
Cannon realizes that for hospitality companies to embrace environmental practices, they need
to see a positive effect on the bottom line."They have to answer to stockholders and their boards,"
says Cannon, who is also an associate professor at the school."You have to show them the return on
investment."
Cannon estimates that more
than 22 million people are employed in restaurant, hotel and travel businesses. If those companies
adopt environmental policies and practices and employees see the impact, the changeover could have
a huge effect. When she worked at the Ritz-Carlton, part of the hotel’s daily lineup was the “
standard of the day.” It served as a reminder, for instance, to see a guest and call that guest by
name.
What if, wonders Cannon, hotels or restaurants practiced a "green point of the day" such as,
"turn off the water when you're brushing your teeth," or, "recycle your paper today."?
Cannon points out that if only one out of 10 industry employees recycled his or her newspaper
seven days a week, it would save seven million trees each year. "It's a great target population to
educate about the environment and why corporations do certain things," Cannon says. "Employees see
what their companies are doing and maybe they start doing it."
Cannon has a knack for coupling data with common sense about people. "There's this business
stigma that going green is expensive," says Holly Elmore, founder of The Green Foodservice
Alliance. "Debby has the credibility, and she can follow through because of her experience
and her resources ... she has a passion, but she brings a practicality to it," Elmore says.
Brand names abound in the hospitality industry, but much of the industry is made up of small
businesses - individual restaurant owners, hotel franchisees - and they don't have the resources
industry mainstays have. Tagging it a "baby-step kind of process," Cannon says that environmental
improvements are going to be made incrementally and that these businesses not only need statistical
evidence that they'll improve their bottom lines, but also the educational opportunities and
support to make changes. "It needs to be done strategically," Cannon says. "This is not about
riding a wave. It needs to be authentic."
Cannon was on the steering committee for the inaugural GreenBusiness Works EXPO that took
place in June at the Georgia World Congress Center. Various hospitality industry employers
and employees, whether new or experienced at being "green," learned about new technology, best
practices and environmental trends in their industries.
Entrepreneur and environmentalist Ted Turner and longtime restaurateur George McKerrow Jr.,
co-founders of Ted's Montana Grill, recently launched what they've dubbed "The Green
Restaurant Revolution."
In an effort to showcase the hospitality industry's role in sustainability and in
environmental stewardship, the two men took their show on a nine-city tour that they kicked off in
Atlanta. Turner and McKerrow met with 150 Atlanta-area restaurant owners and operators to discuss
eco-friendly business practices, hosted by the Georgia Restaurant Alliance and the Green
Foodservice Alliance. Later that day, the duo met with students in GSU's hospitality program to
chat about how students can make a difference by becoming green leaders.
Some of the things the men mentioned: low-energy light bulbs, using a restaurant's unused
drinking water to water flowers and plants, menus printed on recycled paper, and paper straws and
to-go cups made of biodegradable cornstarch. At Ted's, takeout food is placed in
biodegradable BioPlus Earth Containers, and at the chain's Tallahassee, Fla., location, 66 solar
panels on the roof provide partial power for the restaurant.
McKerrow, in a National Restaurant Association video, calls what they're doing at Ted's "a
mindset," and adds that being environmentally conscious "becomes an economic engine- granted a
small engine- for now."
Having Turner and McKerrow speak to hospitality students is a positive step toward
transforming that small engine into a revolution. "These [students] are the guys who will carry it
forward. These are our industry's future leaders," says Gena Weaver, vice president of marketing
of Ted's Montana Grill.
McKerrow considers Cannon "smart and absolutely a delight to work with," and the GSU
hospitality program one of the best in the country. "The program there continues to evolve to
address the changing needs of the industry," he says.
There are 280 students in GSU hospitality's undergraduate program and 80 more studying to get
their MBAs. Last year, GSU opened a Hospitality Learning Center inside the GWCC, the first
educational facility of its type in the nation and a place for students to experience real-life
learning opportunities.
Cannon, who grew up in Savannah, didn't grow up wanting to be in the hospitality industry. It
was more serendipitous than anything else. When she met a general manager at a Hyatt who had
started as a bus attendant, something clicked. Later, while she was at the Ritz-Carlton, Cannon
taught part time at GSU. When a faculty position opened up in 1991, she took it.
"It's the best of both worlds," she says. "I didn't leave the industry, and I'm helping to
develop their leaders for the future."
