Hotel and golf operator Marriott has unveiled a new environmental programme that it intends to implement across its global portfolio of courses.

Marriott says it intends the Environmental Sustainability Performance Award Programme (ESPA), to serve as a benchmark for environmental stewardship. By the end of 2014, it expects 60 Marriott golf courses at 44 resorts in 13 countries to complete the programme criteria.

The scheme comprises four key elements: implementing the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary programme and putting in place a water conservation strategy, including best practices and key metrics for reducing irrigation water consumption and the completion of an irrigation audit by a certified auditor. Thidly, courses will need to complete Syngenta’s EcoMeasures tool which supports efforts to reduce carbon footprints, and finally to complete the Marriott Golf Conservation Scorecard, a newly developed exclusive evaluation of nearly 100 key conservation standards. Courses will need to achieve a pre-determined percentage of the standards to complete this section, and an annual recertification and update will be required.

“This programme is the next step in our company-wide commitment to environmental sustainability,” said David Robinson, Marriott Golf’s senior director of golf grounds. “We were the first resort golf operator to mandate every property in its portfolio to become a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. Now, with ESPA, we have further positioned Marriott Golf as the industry’s premier ‘green’ golf management organisation.”