Zenbird Editorial TeamECOMMIT Co., Ltd. has partnered with JHAT Co., Ltd. to implement a resource circulation model for lost and left-behind items across 30 hotel MONday Group facilities.
Hotels currently face growing challenges regarding items left by guests, which also means growing environmental and logistical burden from the growing tourism in Japan. Under Japanese law, lost property must generally be stored for three months, leading to overcrowded storage areas and increased administrative pressure on staff. Furthermore, many items that remain unclaimed are eventually incinerated, despite often being in usable condition.
ECOMMIT offers a new circular model which redefines these items as resources rather than waste, operating through a three-step process. First, “intention cards” are placed in guest rooms, allowing travellers to explicitly indicate if they wish to leave behind clothing or daily necessities for reuse or recycling. This clarifies the status of the items immediately, preventing unnecessary storage of unwanted goods. ECOMMIT then collects these items and transports them to one of its eight “Circular Centres” located across Japan.
At these facilities, items undergo a rigorous sorting process to determine the most appropriate route for redistribution. ECOMMIT maintains a track record of reusing or recycling over 98% of the materials it collects.
ECOMMIT has a proprietary traceability system digitising the flow of goods, allowing the hotel group to monitor the redistribution of items and calculate specific metrics, such as reuse rates and CO2 reduction levels. More hotels should hop on the bandwagon, as this data helps provide the transparency necessary for robust ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting and help them quantify their environmental impact.
[Reference] PR Times (Japanese)
