Hilton, Marriott and Chipotle Bankroll Climate Opposition, Despite Green Claims

When it comes to climate change, there are two Chipotles.

One is the fast-casual burrito chain with a focus on sustainable ingredients, an app that lets customers track the carbon footprint of their orders and a goal to halve its heat-trapping emissions in the next six years to help fix “one of the most pressing issues of our time,” the company says. The other is a key member of the Restaurant Law Center, an industry trade group that is suing and supporting litigation to beat back pivotal climate rules.

Such contradictions are rife among many of the world’s biggest hotel operators and restaurant chains. Marriott and Hilton have pledged to cut their carbon emissions by almost half by 2030, while the parent companies of KFC, Taco Bell and Burger King have made similar climate commitments. But all of these companies are important members of powerful trade associations that have recently filed lawsuits to overturn critical local and state climate rules. The litigation could deter climate action among city and state lawmakers, who have surpassed the gridlocked federal government as the primary drivers of green policies in the US.

“A lot of companies have sort of outsourced their climate obstruction to their trade associations,” says Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and society at Brown University. “People have been focused on Exxon and the Koch Brothers, but climate obstruction is really much more complicated, and it’s everywhere.”

This issue has recently leapt to the fore in Colorado, where lawmakers for the state and for Denver enacted rules to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from buildings, including hotels, offices and apartments. Despite being less ambitious than the climate pledges of Marriott International Inc., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and others, the rules are now under fire from industry groups like the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association, where Marriott representatives hold powerful board seats, as well as the Restaurant Law Center.

Chipotle’s press team didn’t respond to numerous messages, while a Marriott spokesperson said in an email that “we do not directly control the actions taken by industry associations or business groups,” and affirmed the company’s climate commitments.

The climate stakes are significant because buildings are an outsized source of emissions. Occupants burn methane gas to heat water and power furnaces, and they gobble up electricity. These structures account for about half of Denver’s climate footprint, and, more broadly, about 35% of heat-trapping emissions in the US.