Accor's journey towards greener hospitality

 

As the largest hotel operator in Australia and New Zealand, a leader in the field of positive hospitality and a long-term advocate of sustainable development, Accor places Corporate Social Responsibility at the heart of its overall strategy.

The group was awarded the Marie Claire Award for Best Global Sustainable Hotel Group. The accolade recognises a wide range of initiatives, from the Group’s Planet 21 – Acting Here program, commitments to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and to ban single-use plastic by the end of 2022.

Accor’s hotels are balancing comfort with positive changes for the environment, including their ‘Go Green’ initiative which provides guests with the option to remove daily housekeeping services for F&B credit. Read on to learn more about the innovative solutions the Accor Group has implemented to reduce its environmental impact:

Building design

With two new hotels opening every three days worldwide (on average), Accor is committed to ensuring 100% of renovated or new hotels are low-carbon buildings (owned and leased hotels). This is achieved through various strategies, including:

• Monitoring and analysing water and energy consumption monthly, with action taken to address any malfunction
• Respecting standard water flows for all showers, taps and toilets
• Ensuring proper wastewater treatment
• Use of energy-saving lamps
• Recycling hazardous waste
• Recycling two types of waste: paper, glass, cardboard or plastic

For example, The Pullman Sydney Olympic Park has innovated with solar thermal collectors, a highly efficient water heating technology. The Novotel-ibis Sydney Olympic Park combo has close to 140 solar panels to heat water and 300 photovoltaic panels to generate electricity.

Food waste reduction

Serving more than 150 million meals per year worldwide, Accor has committed to offering guests healthy, sustainable food while working to eliminate food waste. Taking substantial steps to reduce the environmental impact of food and beverage consumption, the Group’s hotels around the world have found ingenious ways of reusing food product that has not been consumed in other recipes. This includes:

• The Pullman Auckland (New Zealand): makes marmalade win the peel from the juice oranges squeezed at breakfast.
• The MGallery Hotel St-Moritz de Queenstown (New Zealand): transforms its unconsumed milk into cheese.

With agriculture accounting for one-quarter of global CO2 emissions, the Group has also developed 1,200+ urban vegetable gardens across its hotels, each required to meet certain criteria: minimum cultivation surface area, production of vegetables for food consumption, regular maintenance, etc. The vegetables, fruit, herbs and edible flowers that they produce feature in the restaurant menus, in the bar cocktails or in the spas’ aromatic oils and herbal teas.

Local procurement and supporting local communities

Accor is committed to fostering sustainable social and economic development and respecting and supporting the local communities where their hotels are based. By creating jobs in their hotels and buying locally, Accor contributes substantially to social and economic development in our host countries. For example, 70% of the jobs that Accor’s hotels support are based in their host countries and 83% of the wealth generated by their hotels remains in the host country.

The Accor Group also gives back to surrounding communities through the Accor Heartist Solidarity, the Group’s endowment fund which has been operating since 2008. Each year, it provides financial and technical support to thirty local projects carried out by Accor’s hotels and headquarters in partnership with local associations and NGOs. This further serves the group’s mission to fight against the economic and social exclusion of people in great precariousness through professional integration.

Altogether, Accor’s innovative solutions anticipate new consumer needs while also exceeding their expectations for unique and sustainable experiences. To find out more, click here.