Understanding the New Reporting Framework

Energy has always been a defining line on the hotel’s profit and loss statement, influencing a large part of a hotel’s utility efficiency and environmental performance. Yet the degree to which many hotel groups account for and analyze energy costs and usage has varied widely across properties, brands, and regions.

The 12th Revised Edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI®) changes that. It introduces a dedicated structure for Energy, Water, and Waste (EWW) reporting, giving one of hospitality’s most significant expense categories a consistent financial and operational language.

This article takes a closer look at the Energy component of the new EWW schedule: why it matters, what’s included, and how finance and operations teams can ensure their data is ready.

Do not miss the corresponding webinar, “USALI 12, Understanding the EWW Schedule: Part 1, Energy Reporting” on January 22 at 3:00 p.m. CT. Register Today!

Why Energy Reporting Matters 

Energy is one of the largest controllable operating expenses in a hotel’s P&L, typically the second largest after labor. Energy costs also flow straight down, directly affecting profit. The USALI 12 formalizes how this expense is recorded by aligning cost with actual consumption and bringing greater consistency across properties and portfolios. This helps uncover inefficiencies, strengthen benchmarking, and justify investments in efficiency initiatives or renewables. For owners and investors, standardized energy data strengthens financial reporting, supports valuation, and improves transparency for ESG disclosures. Operationally, it highlights energy as a performance indicator that connects financial discipline and environmental responsibility.

What’s Covered Under the USALI Energy Account

In the 12th Revised Edition, the Energy section of Schedule 9 (EWW) replaces and expands upon the former Utilities schedule. It introduces a more structured breakdown of accounts to better capture both the cost and consumption of energy across all sources used by a property.

The Energy account includes:

• Electricity — power purchased from the grid.

• Fuels, Gases, and District Energy — natural gas, propane, fuel oil, purchased steam, and chilled water.

• Renewable Energy — electricity generated on-site or purchased from renewable sources, including renewable energy certificates.

• Vehicle Fuels — energy used by hotel-owned vehicles or other motorized equipment. 

Each line item should be reported in both financial terms (monetary cost) and operational terms (consumption units such as kilowatt hours, terms, or gallons). The total Energy account combines these inputs to provide a complete picture of a hotel’s energy profile, and energy intensity per dollar helps relate consumption to cost. 

Common Challenges and Tips to Prepare Your Energy Data

Preparing energy data for USALI 12 begins with ensuring that financial and operational figures align. Every energy source needs both a cost figure and a verified consumption figure. Here are key practices and considerations to ensure accurate and complete reporting, along with the common challenges to look out for. 

1. Verify cost and usage alignment. Confirm that utility invoices and meter readings capture both cost and usage, ensuring that financial reporting reflects actual consumption, not estimates.

2. Report consumption, not demand. When reviewing utility invoices, make sure reported consumption figures represent total energy used, and not the peak demand values.

3. Align data to reporting periods. Because utility billing cycles often differ from monthly accounting periods, data should be normalized so that reported usage matches the accounting month. Start by verifying start and end dates for each billing cycle.

4. Review invoice capture and entry. Input mistakes such as wrong decimal points, missing bills, incorrectly captured numbers (i.e. an 8 as a 3) or duplicate entries are common. Establish a review process to catch these before closing the reporting period.

5. Check for under- or over-reporting. For example, ensure that all submeters are included, as missing submeters can leave significant portions of energy consumption unreported. Avoid counting both natural gas deliveries and on-site usage from that same fuel consumption total, which can inadvertently happen when invoices and meter logs are combined. Review totals carefully before reporting.

6. Verify conversions and units. Convert all data into consistent units, such as kilowatt hours or BTUs, before aggregating. Purchased chilled water, in particular, often requires careful interpretation. Double-check how your supplier measures and bills, and apply a consistent conversion factor when integrating that data into total energy figures. Don’t assume that the same utility type will have the same unit of natural gas if your hotel has 2 different providers for example.

7. Clarify roles across departments. Finance, Engineering, and Operations often share responsibility for energy data. Assign clear ownership and procedures for who gathers invoices, checks units, and uploads values to prevent delays and inconsistencies.

8. Maintain documentation. Each data point should link back to a verifiable source, whether an invoice, meter log, or supplier statement, so as to ensure a clear audit trail with assumptions and conversions applied. 

Using Standardized Energy Data

USALI 12 also introduces standardized metrics like Energy per Occupied Room (POR) and Energy per Square Foot. These metrics allow you to compare internally across the portfolio, identify where operational improvements will yield the highest savings, and report results consistently. 

Standardized metrics also enable external benchmarking. The Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking (CHSB) Index, which includes data from more than 30,000 hotels globally, allows hotels to see how their energy, water, carbon, and waste performance compares with peers and assess how to improve.

This article originally appeared on HFTP.