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Corporate Responsibility Report
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Key environmental achievements in 2012
- Exceeded our three-year target (2010-2012 to reduce energy per available room by between 6 and 10% in our managed and owned estate), with a reduction of 11.7%
- Met our target to have 50% of our hotels (2,250 based on January 2012 hotel figures), using Green Engage on 14 January 2013. We now have over 2,270 hotels enrolled
- Reduced our carbon footprint in our owned and managed hotels by 19% per occupied room in a year
- Reduced the global carbon footprint in our hotels and corporate offices by 76,000 metric tonnes in a year
- Launched a global carbon standard to calculate and communicate the carbon footprint of hotel stays and meetings in June, in collaboration with ITP, WTTC and 22 other leading hotels
- Incorporated a carbon calculator within Green Engage using the industry approved carbon measurement methodology, with our hotels able to apply it immediately
- Launched a Green Meeting check list for our hotels, which guides hotels through the kind of issues that could arise in conversations with meetings planners
- Developed further new features within Green Engage such as multi-unit reporting and a water benchmark
- Partnered with Clean the World to recycle partially-used soaps and bottled amenities from our hotel rooms and distribute them in communities with limited access to hygiene products.
Key environmental objectives for 2013
- Launch a set of externally facing targets to report against across our three core programmes, including Green Engage
- Work to help all hotels enrolled in Green Engage make best use of the tool, to help them reduce their environmental impacts and operating costs
- Continue to work with the IHG Owners Association to enrol more of our franchised hotels in Green Engage
- Continue to work with the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative (HCMI) to increase use of the carbon methodology in our industry
- Make it easier for more of our guests to locate and book Green Engage hotels
- Launch revised Green Solutions, action items within Green Engage, which our hotels can follow to manage their environmental impacts
- Work to help our hotels implement Green Solutions
Climate change is having a major impact on the travel and hospitality industry. As the largest hotel chain in the world we know that the potential climate change costs to our business are huge. We want to continue to grow responsibly and that means reducing our energy, carbon and resource impacts. We are committed to doing this by seeking new ways to reduce and manage emissions across our hotel estate rather than through purchasing carbon offsets. This provides an opportunity to work closely with our partners to develop innovative technology and identify and implement practical, cost-efficient measures that are both sustainable and responsible.
With over 4,600 hotels and more than 1,000 in the pipeline we are in a strong position to advance the development of new 'green building' technologies and processes, and to use our critical mass to bring them to market.
All of our efforts reflect our ambition to lead the industry and the marketplace in sustainability. As thinking evolves in this area, so too does our vision of what a green hotel looks like and we constantly seek the input of internal and external stakeholders in order to find new and better ways to design, build and run hotels.
Green Engage
Our online environmental sustainability tool, Green Engage, enables us to measure, manage and report on the environmental and other CR impacts of our hotels across the IHG system as well as driving human rights and community engagement. It provides Green Solutions for both new and existing hotels in four different climatic regions. These recommendations cover design, operations and technologies aimed at reducing energy, water and waste, cutting carbon emissions, improving guest health and comfort, reducing operating and maintenance costs, and raising guest and staff awareness of sustainability issues.
In 2011 we became the first hotel company to be aligned to LEED for an existing programme, Green Engage.
LEED alignment for Green Engage – case study
In January 2011, our in-house sustainability system Green Engage was aligned with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). We are the first hotel company to receive approval for LEED pre-certification for an existing hotels programme.
The alignment cements our place as an industry leader in sustainability. LEED is the top programme for the design, construction and operation of green buildings.
It means hotels signed up to Green Engage can speed up their own LEED certification. Because it provides a stamp of approval recognised by industry and corporate clients, it will also be of real value to owners. We have six LEED certified hotels in our system with an additional 52 registered.
Transparency and assurance
We understand that assurance and transparency are critical to leadership in the sustainability arena. As we continue to evolve and raise our sustainability targets, we recognise the need for an appropriate assurance process. In 2012, we launched an assurance process that reviews each Green Engage hotel that has achieved a level of certification for the accuracy of its reporting and to improve the way hotels use Green Engage.
Employee education
Employee engagement and effective employee training are essential to achieving our sustainability objectives. That is why we encourage all of our hotels to put training in place to help their employees use the sustainability initiatives recommended in Green Engage and understand the purpose and goals of 'green' hotel management strategies.
We also support our hotels by offering training. We’ve developed virtual Green Engage training to guide users through the tool, introduce new features and make sure they are equipped to make best use of the tool to help them reduce their environmental impacts and operating costs.
Leading by example in our offices is an effective way of showing our hotels that using Green Engage can help them to reduce energy and costs. To do this, we set up a Green Team in our global headquarters in Denham with volunteers from most departments. Green Team members act as green ambassadors and help raise awareness of CR at IHG, along with our key programmes.
The Green Team uses Green Engage to track and report on energy, waste and water, and this year we can report that we've achieved a 9% reduction in total energy year on year. This reduction to date has been achieved through changes to the heating and cooling settings saving the office over $30,000 per year. Other initiatives implemented by the Green Team this year include the provision of educational materials to encourage green office behaviours, a Cycle 2 Work scheme which has had a high up-take and a lift sharing/car pooling website.
In our Atlanta offices, we are enhancing environmental education and all of our Atlanta facilities are using Green Engage. We have launched several training sessions to educate employees on sustainability and in particular how to optimise recycling at the office and at home.
IHG headquarters in Denham, UK becomes green engaged
In May 2012 we held a Green Day at our headquarters in Denham, UK, organised by our green ambassadors, the Denham Green Team. Our Green Day was a great way of raising awareness of our CR programmes, what we're doing to be sustainable at the Denham office and giving our employees an opportunity to meet the Green Team, established in 2011.
Activities included informative games on waste recycling and an ideas tree where employees posted over 100 green ideas that would make for a more sustainable work environment. As well as planning to implement them around the building, the ideas will support our Green Engage objectives for the Denham office. To help reduce our carbon footprint in Denham, the Green Team also launched a new Lift Sharing/Car Pooling site on our company intranet, helping employees to find someone to share their journey to work with.
During 2012, our headquarters in Denham achieved a 9% reduction in total energy consumption and 25% reduction on total energy per employee.
Read more about this case study – Island Resort halves waste sent to landfill
Guest awareness and participation
Encouraging our guests to behave responsibly, from booking a green hotel and the choices they make in a location, to helping us design greener hotels, plays a crucial role in implementing our sustainability measures.
One of the ways we achieve this is by making recommendations to our hotels through Green Engage, such as:
- using signage, literature and helpful front-of-house staff to draw attention to the green efforts of the hotel and encourage guests to participate
- promoting local sustainability via shops, activities and alternative means of transport so that guests' environmentally conscious choices permeate into the surrounding economy
- providing guests with feedback on their energy and resource usage in a friendly, informative manner.
Green Engage also helps us learn how different hotels around the world engage with guests on environmental issues in order to share learning across the Group. One of the initiatives helping to bring responsible tourism principles to life for our guests is our partnership with National Geographic.
A great guest experience starts from the moment a guest searches for a hotel. For those guests who want to choose a greener stay, in 2011 we launched an initiative identifying Green Engage hotels on the English-language version of our booking websites. The first phase of the initiative also included Green Engage information on brand, individual hotel and Priority Club Rewards websites. In the future, we will launch Phase 2 of the programme, providing more ways to search for and access our Green Engage hotels.
You can book a Green Engage hotel today and enjoy a visit that benefits the environment and the community. Search now to book one of our Green Engage hotels and join us to make a difference.
As to green hotels of the future, we believe our guests are one of our greatest assets and we welcome their participation in our journey to becoming sustainable. That's why we created the Innovation Hotel site, where our guests are helping to inform the future design and operation of our hotels. Join the conversation by visiting the Innovation Hotel.
2,270+
Over 2,270 of our hotels use Green Engage to date in 2012
1,250+
The number of staff who have completed green training