World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance
World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance: Turning Hotel Sustainability Data Into Action With BeCause and Vera‑FY
The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (WSHA) brings together the world’s leading hotel brands, investors, and solution providers to accelerate Net Positive Hospitality. As an Affiliate Member and part of WSHA’s Senior Advisory Council, BeCause helps turn that ambition into day‑to‑day reality by making sustainability data usable, connected, and ready for reporting.
Earlier in 2024, BeCause helped WSHA (the Alliance) digitise its Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative (HCMI) and Hotel Water Measurement Initiative (HWMI) methodologies and make them fully automated inside the BeCause platform. Today, that work continues through Vera‑FY (a World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance initiative powered by BeCause) giving hotels a single place to collect, calculate, and communicate trusted sustainability data.
Who is the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (WSHA)?
The WSHA is a global network representing more than 50,000 hotels, 7 million rooms, and over 300 brands, along with leading investors, suppliers, and partners. WSHA develops free practical resources, tools, and programmes to help the industry give back more than it takes – from climate and water to human rights and social impact.
WSHA’s Impact Committees and working groups focus on areas such as:
- Climate action and emissions reduction
- Water stewardship and resilience
- Human rights and social responsibility
- Standards, reporting, and universal KPIs for hospitality
WSHA provides a range of resources, including tools and programs, categorized into these four main areas.
BeCause contributes to this work as an Affiliate Member and as a member of the Senior Advisory Council, supporting committees such as the Standards & Reporting Committee and the Universal KPIs Committee.
WSHA strives to address pressing global issues that impact both the environment and society. Through its strategic initiatives they aim to promote net-positive hospitality, drive sustainable and inclusive growth, and generate positive impacts at local and global levels.
To achieve these goals, SHA focuses on the following strategies:
- Fostering collaboration among hospitality companies, strategic partners, and the broader value chain;
- Developing valuable tools and resources to support hotels in their sustainable journey;
- Promoting responsible business practices throughout the hospitality industry's supply chains and stakeholders;
- Establishing global partnerships.
Why HCMI and HWMI matters for hotels
Two of the Alliance’s most widely used resources are the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative (HCMI) and the Hotel Water Measurement Initiative (HWMI).
- HCMI is the hotel industry’s recognised methodology for calculating carbon emissions, aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and used by tens of thousands of hotels worldwide.
- HWMI provides a standard way to measure and report water use across hotel operations, from guestrooms to meetings and events.
Together, they enable hotels to:
- Calculate carbon footprint per occupied room and per meeting space
- Track total and per guest water consumption
- Benchmark properties consistently across a portfolio
- Provide credible data to corporate clients, OTAs, and certification bodies
The challenge has never been the lack of methodologies – it has been the manual effort required to collect, calculate, and share this data at scale.
Why measuring carbon emissions and water consumption is important for a hotel?
Since 1990, global CO2 emissions have risen by nearly 50%, and the hotel sector is responsible for 1% of these global carbon emissions. The hospitality industry, like other sectors and people around the world, faces the consequences of extreme weather events occurring worldwide.
Read the complete HCMI methodology.
Water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population. On average, hotels consume 1,500 liters (approximately 396.26 gallons) of water/room/day, often exceeding the water consumption of local populations in regions with water scarcity. Consequently, hotels bear a significant responsibility in managing their water usage and minimizing their negative impact.
Read the complete HWMI methodology.
The Hotel Waste Measurement Methodology (HWMM)
The Hotel Waste Measurement Methodology is also available to businesses and primarily targets hotel portfolio managers, although individual properties can also benefit from it. This methodology assists in defining inventory boundaries, measuring and reporting generated waste, and addressing waste-related challenges in the hospitality industry. Establishing a common approach to measuring impact and tracking progress is crucial in addressing waste as a significant issue.
Read the complete HWMM methodology.
The Net Zero Methodology for Hotels
The Net Zero Methodology for Hotels aims to provide support to the hotel industry in committing to and working towards achieving net-zero emissions. It helps with baseline setting, creating emissions boundaries, planning a pathway and milestones to achieve net zero, and providing an understanding of the effect of the hotel’s emissions on real estate and tourism value chains.
Read the complete Net Zero Methodology for Hotels.
From PDFs to a fully automated experience
Historically, HCMI and HWMI lived in spreadsheets and PDFs that hotel teams had to update by hand. That often meant:
- Duplicate data entry across systems
- Errors in formulas and inconsistent assumptions
- Little reuse of data for certifications, RFPs, or ESG reporting
To address this, the Alliance partnered with BeCause to digitise and operationalise HCMI and HWMI inside the BeCause data hub.
Simply put:
- Hotels input operational data once (energy, water, occupancy, floor area, etc.)
- HCMI and HWMI calculations run automatically in the background
- Outputs are standardised and ready to use across multiple channels; from WSHA reporting to corporate proposals and sustainability certifications
This automation significantly reduces the time and cost required to manage carbon and water metrics while improving data quality and consistency.
Introducing Vera-FY: A WSHA initiative powered by BeCause
Vera-FY is the Alliance’s (WSHA) global sustainability data initiative for hospitality, powered by BeCause’s underlying data infrastructure. It connects hotel-level operational data, WSHA tools like HCMI/HWMI, and the frameworks and certifications that hotels rely on.
With Vera-FY and BeCause, hotels can:
- Centralise sustainability data from properties, brands, and partners
- Run HCMI and HWMI automatically for all participating hotels
- Reuse the same verified data for:
- WSHA reporting and Net Positive Hospitality goals
- CSRD, SFDR, ESRS, and other regulatory frameworks (via BeCause’s reporting modules)
- ESG disclosures to investors and corporate clients
- Eco-labels and certifications, such as Green Key and others, referenced by WSHA
This shared infrastructure means fewer spreadsheets, fewer manual uploads, and more time spent on improvement rather than data wrangling.
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How BeCause strengthens the WSHA ecosystem
BeCause’s role in the Alliance ecosystem goes beyond pure software. Together with WSHA and other partners, BeCause helps hospitality businesses move from data collection to meaningful impact.
1. Digitising industry standards
- HCMI and HWMI are integrated and automated in the BeCause platform.
- Frameworks like Hotel Sustainability Basics (HSB) and Alliance aligned criteria can be mapped to hotel data for easier compliance and communication.
2. Enabling CSRD ready reporting for hotels
BeCause also collaborates with partners like d2o to deliver a CSRD compliance solution for hotels that combines operational performance with robust ESG reporting. This allows hotel groups to connect Vera FY and WSHA methodologies with broader EU regulatory needs.
You can read more about the EU regulations in:
3. Supporting hotels, chains, and destinations
Through Vera-FY, the same data pipelines that power HCMI and HWMI can be reused by:
- Individual hotels and small groups (see Sustainability Wins for Small Hotels: How to Master Sustainability Data)
- Global hotel brands and management companies (see Ultimate Guide to ESG Software for Hotels)
- Destinations and tourism boards using Vera-FY to manage certifications and sustainability performance across their region
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Building credibility through collaboration
BeCause’s partnership with the Alliance (WSHA) is anchored in shared objectives:
- Net Positive Hospitality: Helping the industry give back more than it takes, by turning data into decisions and decisions into measurable impact.
- Standardisation and comparability: Aligning hotel level data with industry recognised tools like HCMI, HWMI, and HSB so stakeholders can trust what they see.
- Efficiency and scalability: Reducing the operational burden of ESG reporting so hotels can focus on improving performance, not managing spreadsheets.
This collaboration is highlighted in several external communications and press pieces, including:
- WSHA press release: BeCause officially joins the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance to drive collaboration in sustainability data management – World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance
- News coverage: BeCause Officially Joins the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance to Drive Collaboration in Sustainability Data Management | Hospitality Technology
- Product announcement: BeCause streamlines carbon and water measurement for hotels around the world
How hotels can get started with Vera-FY, HCMI and HWMI
If you are part of the WSHA network or work with aligned brands and certifications, you can:
1. Activate HCMI/HWMI through BeCause or Vera-FY
- Use existing data feeds where possible (PMS, EMS, metering, etc.)
- Let the platform run the Alliance methodologies automatically.
2. Connect your measurements to your wider ESG story
- Use BeCause modules to map HCMI/HWMI metrics into CSRD, ESRS, and other frameworks.
- Reuse the same numbers for certifications , RFPs, and corporate disclosures.
3. Collaborate with the WSHA ecosystem
- Join Alliance programmes, and Impact Committees to stay ahead of best practice and upcoming guidance.
- Explore joint initiatives like the Vera-FY webinars.
Why this matters for the future of hospitality
Sustainability in hospitality is no longer a side project; it is a core expectation from guests, corporate clients, regulators, and investors. To respond to this demand, hotels need more than good intentions, they need reliable, connected data.
By combining:
- WSHA's industry recognised tools (HCMI, HWMI, HSB)
- BeCause’s data infrastructure and automation
- Vera-FY as a shared platform for hospitality sustainability data
the travel, tourism and hospitality community is building a practical pathway to Net Positive Hospitality.
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