Miljömässig hållbarhet inom besöksnäringen : En kvalitativ textanalys om hur Green Key kommunicerar kriterier via stöddokument

Sammanfattning: Tourism is increasing with each passing year, which places increasing demands on businesses in the hospitality industry to achieve environmental sustainability. One way for businesses to show their commitment to the environment is by acquiring and becoming certified with an eco-­‐label. However, the views on ecolabelling may vary as it is a way for businesses to show their voluntary commintment to achieve environmental sustainability. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the eco-­‐label Green Key presents criteria for hotels in its support documents and how the hotel chains Elite Hotels of Sweden and Radisson Hospitality AB describe these criteria in their sustainability and annual report for 2018. A qualitative text analysis has been carried out on a total of six support documents regarding criterias, where questions are asked to the documents to answer the purpose of the study. The study has shown that the Green Keys support document presents criteria as both mandatory and voluntary scoring criteria in a total of 13 areas. The supporting documents also describe that important parts such as knowledge and information are decisive in whether the business succeeds in achieving a change through criteria or not. Criticism directed at eco-­‐labels is largely about the question of whether environmental sustainability can be achieved through an eco-­‐label, as certain criteria cannot measure the actual environmental performance of the business. The study shows that Green Key’s support document with criteria places requirements on hotel operations to introduce measurable goals in the main ares of energy, water, chemicals and waste where all criteria require documentation, but there is some uncertainty as to whether a criterion is mandatory or not depending on whether or not it is considered applicable to the business.