Rogat+-+Memo+-+Broad+Impact

Michelle Rogat Broad Impact / Biggest Lever


 * "Low-Hanging Fruit" - the hospitality industry is known for it's luxury but also this image of being wasteful. This is a field where there is a lot of room for improvement, and most of what can be improved has been done before, just now it needs to be applied to these kinds of businesses.
 * Golf Courses - Audubon certifies courses for being "green", hopefully more and more will do this, there are a lot of golf courses in the US that haven't, and this is one more study that shows the process of one GC doing this and will tout the benefits that result
 * Country Clubs - the clubs themselves should follow suit and try to become more sustainable, and once they do they might have the ability to influence its members to be open to making their own businesses more sustainable. This might be the biggest leverage in the particular thesis for the sustainability movement, the chance to influence the elite members of the club to becoming aware and hopefully liking what sustainability has done for the club, then they will hopefully do the same to influence their own businesses and practices.
 * Showing the reality and truth behind the idea that the sustainability movement and it's activists should really shift a majority of their focus from creating sustainability possibilities (because in many ways we now how those created) to focusing on getting society to accept and take up those sustainable practices.

Class Work
 * How does your research advance the knowledge and programs to advance environmental sustainability?
 * the hospitality can be a leveraging point for sustainability, through the golf courses, the members, the hotels, etc
 * implication of research is to increase the acceptance and uptake of sustainability in businesses
 * aim is to improve sustainability by honing in on the issues that work against sustainability in business and analyze the ways to overcome those issues
 * point out the importance of including the elite in the sustainability movement, and not viewing them as the bad guys for the environment
 * What do you get out of focusing on the hospitality industry?
 * gain immersive knowledge from working with the country club and its golf course, club house, restaurant, staff, and elite members
 * the opportunities and resources available to businesses in hospitality to transition to using sustainable practices
 * finding the truth behind the image of hospitality being the low-hanging fruit of sustainability, the truth behind their wasteful image
 * organizational standpoint - business ecology of hospitality has inter-dependencies
 * the organizational structure within a business, the stakeholder model, and it's role in the success of sustainable projects