Driving Sustainable Change in Golf and Hospitality

A Conversation with Kathy Sue McGuire

2022 marks the official launch of our journey (Andrew and I) as sustainability consultants through Driving the Green. As we find further ways of bridging vision to reality, we have explored conversations with those already walking the walk.

Kathy Sue McGuire started the first office recycling program in the State of Florida in 1991 for local phone company Bell South, winning both a local and state award for it. For over a decade, Kathy worked for PGA National Resort (home of the Honda Classic), and in that same span of time she founded her consultancy now known as 3 Pillar Solutions. 

3 Pillar Solutions helps clients like The Breakers Palm Beach and Soul Community Planet by “making change happen doing work that matters for people who care.” In part, this means meeting sustainable development goals while improving efficiencies and making a profit.

More simply, it means helping clients “do well financially by doing well morally”.

In my conversation with Kathy, we explore her journey in sustainability, resistance she met with golf, and how the opportunity remains for golf and hospitality to adopt a more responsible stance. We initially learned about the latter from our interviews with Banyan Tree of South Asia.

When did your career interests in sustainability merge with golf and why?

I went to work at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens as an executive assistant to the general manager, and about four months after I started, the property was sold to an investor group and a new GM was brought in. He was open to ideas about how to improve the property and I suggested a recycling program because I noticed that we generate A LOT of waste.

We kept building on it over the years, and PGA National has five courses, so I was doing a lot of work with the resort but eventually wanted to do more on the actual golf course. That’s when I started researching GEO [around 2013]. Our superintendent and general manager were very open to it and made changes, and then we passed the GEO test. Because of that, we were entered into the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO) Sustainable Golf Course Awards, and we won in 2016 for the most sustainable golf course in the Americas.

Also at the time, I was trying to get the Honda Classic to become more sustainable, because so much waste was generated at those tournaments.

What did you learn as Director of Sustainable Development at PGA National?

I wasn’t officially a Director of Sustainable Development [the title was promised but her manager left before it became official on payroll], but that was the job description I fulfilled. I was an executive assistant for about ten years and then about a year before I left I said to my manager that I’d like to do this full time [sustainability management at the resort and golf course] and go out and get you some new business. 

In my consulting business on the side, I started looking for resorts with golf courses because of the impact and cost savings that could be made. I no longer looked to prioritize golf because of the resistance I ran into.

Resistance… hmm. In your experience with golf and sustainability, what are some common misperceptions or myths that you ran into?

People don’t want to change unless they have to, they’re being made to by regulation, or if change is in their best interest.

Change is seen as “we’re going to have to hire someone for this change” or “we can’t take this on” even if it’s to their benefit. Pressure from internal or external stakeholders – or regulation – is usually what drives change.

But as you’ve said to me before “what if”? What if the motivation didn’t have to be pressure? What if the motivation could be integrated strategy and opportunity?

Yeah! But people need to be either pressured into something or really believe that it’s the right thing to do. “This is the right thing to do… oh, and it’s going to save us money too!”

Is golf a leader – or behind other industries – when it comes to sustainability? 

Golf and hospitality/tourism are both at the bottom. They’re laggards, so there’s a lot of shame that can come with being a laggard.

But with that, it would seem there’s also a growth opportunity. Do you agree that golf and hospitality hold potential to become leaders in the sustainability movement? Especially because they’re connected to so many power industries like luxury goods, energy, banking…

Yes! Some of the perceptions are changing, that’s my hope. I’m seeing a change, especially with younger golfers. Look at Rory McIlroy, for example, who recently talked about paying to offset the carbon from all of his travel. I think the pressure is on from stakeholders.

When you founded 3 Pillar Solutions in late 2007, what did you see as the gap(s) in the sustainable hospitality sector? What were the main challenges you wanted to address?

I started the first recycling program in the State of Florida for Bell South [local phone company] in 1991 – office paper, cans, bottles, and all of that. I won two awards for it – a state and local award, so that was when I originally got bitten by the bug.

Later on, Governor Crist signed an executive order saying that all hotels were going to have to go through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Lodging Program – regulation pressured them into it – and I thought, “This is what I want to do!”

I was using vacation time and pursuing it on the side while finding facilities that wanted to get the Green Lodging Certification. 

What have you learned since?

I always knew in my heart that people were going to embrace sustainability in hospitality. Revenue enhancement and access to eco-conscious consumers would both be drivers. I didn’t think it was going to take as long, but things are moving forward and 2022 looks like a great year!