Priority Club® Rewards, the loyalty program for IHG, InterContinental® Hotels Group, and its Family of Brands, is changing its name to IHG® Rewards Club. You'll still receive the same great benefits you have today, plus new ones like free Internet for members globally in 2014, starting with Elite members in July 2013.
Corporate Responsibility Report
Energy
Key energy 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.
Key energy objectives for 2013
- 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.
Energy usage in hotels makes up most of our carbon footprint and is the second largest cost to our hotels after people. This makes energy a key focus for the sustainability of our business and the environment.
Since we launched Green Engage in 2009 we have been on a journey to improve our reporting and reduce our energy consumption. With over 2,270 hotels using Green Engage, almost 500 of them automatically feeding us data on energy usage, we are now helping more of our hotels track progress as they strive to become more energy efficient.
With almost 100% of our owned and managed hotels signed up to Green Engage, we are able to show we achieved a 11.7% reduction in energy consumption per available room night between 2009 and 2012.
Energy use in kWh for 2009–2012 per available room
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Our energy data can now be calculated using a much larger sample of hotels using Green Engage which enables far more accurate account of our energy use. For the purpose of full disclosure, in calculating our final energy performance we removed data from a small number of hotels within the sample which had extreme data outliers that were significantly affecting the total energy per room figures. Following the removal of this data we are required to restate our performance between 2009 and 2012 as shown in the above graph.
Green Engage gives us a more accurate picture of energy use across the Group but we still have some way to go. For instance, we are still learning how the energy-saving technologies and techniques we recommend to our hotels can be best used to achieve greater energy efficiency.
Our hotels
Green Engage gives our hotels recommendations on a range of the most appropriate energy-saving techniques and technologies depending on location, climate zone and whether or not the hotel is new. This allows hotels to benchmark against similar hotels in the same climate zone, helping them to identify which strategies could produce most savings.
Electricity consumption is one of the most costly aspects of hotel management from both a financial and environmental standpoint. With careful design, we know it is possible to reduce consumption without diminishing the well-being of guests and staff. This includes using measures such as efficient lighting design, energy-saving products, on-site power generation and effective energy controls and management.
We are also looking at installing more master switches in guest rooms. With potential savings of up to 25% in energy use, the system recognises when a room is occupied or unoccupied, and saves energy during the time guests are not in their rooms.
Green Solutions help cut impacts and costs – a case study
Three years since signing up to Green Engage, Holiday Inn Salisbury Stonehenge is using 10% less water, 15% less gas and 7% less electricity year on year, representing a financial saving of over £12,500 annually. That's the result of implementing measures suggested by Green Engage, our environmental management tool, such as switching off lighting on empty floors during low occupancy and motion sensors in some parts of the hotel.
The hotel's achievements show that making Green Engage part of its business plan benefits both the environment and the business. Recycling waste from guest rooms is a good example. Providing each floor with its own set of recycling bins enables the hotel's housekeeping team to separate waste streams as they go along, rather than making repeat trips to a separate recycling area. This keeps the daily round moving along as quickly and smoothly as it used to before recycling was introduced – proof that simple, affordable activities that are easy to implement can make a difference.
By using Green Engage and through their commitment to the environment, Holiday Inn Salisbury Stonehenge recently won a Green Tourism Award. In turn, their green credentials are helping the hotel win business as more and more corporate clients ask for evidence of their green credentials.
Our offices
We are also putting considerable efforts into making our offices around the world more energy efficient.
Our Global IHG headquarters at Denham, United Kingdom was designed with sustainability in mind. Our goal was to enhance the wellbeing of our employees and set a positive example for our hotels. Some of the features of the building include energy-saving measures such as energy-efficient lighting, and solar panels in the car park. We also launched a Green Team at Denham to get our people involved in reducing the environmental impacts of our corporate office. Members of the team act as green ambassadors to help raise awareness of CR and our key programmes at IHG.
Read more about our Denham office PDF (4.67Mb)
Energy efficient measures introduced to our US headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia include LEDs and occupancy sensors to replace existing lighting, and installing energy efficient appliances and low energy CRT monitors. These resulted in an Energy Star rating of 81. Other improvements include green cleaning and mixed recycling programmes, environmental and energy saving retrofits to building systems, and promoting alternative ways of commuting to work.
Our data and contact centres
IHG manages several data centres, 12 contact centres and all of the IT systems that enable guests to book hotel rooms in any of our 4,600 branded hotels.
Since 2008 our Enterprise Technology team has been simplifying access to all of IHG's global distribution systems, online booking platforms, reporting applications and other management tools. At the same time, we are making important changes in our data and contact centres by getting our supply chain to purchase energy-efficient equipment, and implementing Internet-based voice and data networks across the enterprise. Our goal is to reduce the number of IT servers by 80%.
25%
Energy is the second largest cost in our hotels, after people. Green Engage can help our hotels be up to 25% more energy efficient – that's an average saving of approximately $90,000 USD per year.