ACCORHOTELS TAKES ITS CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NEXT LEVEL WITH BOLD NEW CSR COMMITMENTS LOOKING TO 2020 - PLANET 21 SEASON 2
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PLANET 21 SEASON 2
ACCORHOTELS TAKES ITS
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY TO
THE NEXT LEVEL WITH BOLD NEW
CSR COMMITMENTS LOOKING
TO 2020
PRESS KIT
April 2016
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EDITORIAL, SÉBASTIEN BAZIN, ACCORHOTELS CEO
We are much more than a world leader in the hospitality business:
we are 190,000 inquisitive and passionate men and women, we
are proud of our differences, and we work in a huge variety of
fields of expertise. Thanks to our hotels and more broadly the
complementarity of our hospitality solutions, we welcomed more
than 500,000 guests a day last year.
Today, we have an opportunity to open new doors and tackle the
social and environmental issues that travelers are voicing.
Our leadership also entails duties towards our employees, our
customers, our partners and, of course, the communities hosting
our hotels, around the world.
Our longstanding commitment to sustainable development crystallized in 2012 when we
introduced Planet 21, a program setting 21 objectives looking at 2015. With this program, we have
contributed to raising awareness locally and globally, and taken down-to-earth initiatives through
our dedicated and enthusiastic teams. To take this to the next level, we asked our guests for their
views, reassessed our environmental footprint, and measured our worldwide social and economic
footprint for the first time.
In the wake of the 21st conference on climate change, we took the lessons we had learned
from our previous program and used them to shape our vision for 2020: Drive the change
towards positive hospitality wherever we are. This new five-year plan is our way of encouraging
the hospitality business to do more about curbing its impacts and of inspiring a new model that
brings about enduring changes.
As we serve 200 million meals a year, we will be focusing particularly on offering healthy and
responsible dishes, and on stemming food waste in our restaurants.
As we also invest in and own property, we need to do more about enhancing environmental
efficiency in our buildings and embark our hotels on an energy transition towards carbon-neutral
operations.
The AccorHotels Group as a whole is aiming high, and enlisting all its stakeholders, to drive
sustainable growth that will benefit everyone around us.
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I- PLANET 21 SAISON 1 ACHIEVEMENTS
*(See figures in the annexe 1 below)
As the Group embarks on this new phase in its Planet 21 program and sets its sights on 2020, it
can also look back on a solid track record so far. It has achieved over two-thirds of the objectives it
had set for 2011–2015, and this program has rallied its teams and enlisted its partners in a structured
sustainable development drive aimed at providing more visible and virtuous answers to the questions
that travelers – who are becoming increasingly receptive to social and environmental issues - are
asking.
A. WATER, ENERGY AND CARBON: MAKING PROGRESS AND PICKING UP THE
PACE**
In 2015 (the last year in Planet 21 season 1), we tightened CSR governance in order to speed up
progress towards the 21 objectives. The progress we have made towards our water-consumption,
energy-consumption and CO2-emission targets is the clearest example of this.
• Water: the Group’s water consumption has declined significantly year after year, and dropped
almost 9% in 2015. Several regions, such as Asia-Pacific, overshot the target
• Energy: the Group reversed the trend from a 3% average yearly increase in its energy
consumption in 2011 to a 5.3% decrease in 2015. Factoring in variables such as weather conditions
and hotel occupancy rates, energy consumption in fact decreased 7.2%, i.e. almost met the
target
• Carbon: the Group’s carbon emissions grew by 10% in 2012, but we have also reversed that
trend: they shrank 3.8% in 2014 and our ongoing optimization efforts, especially in hotels, led to
an almost 6% drop in 2015
A closer look at the results, however, shows that the hotels have reached a plateau, especially in
mature European countries such as France, Germany and Poland, and in Benelux. Efforts to optimize
existing equipment in hotels (for example fine-tuning machine settings, training staff, fitting LEDs,
flow control valves and presence sensors, and so forth) have run their course, and the decline in
energy consumption has slowed down.
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B. PROTECTING ECOSYSTEM BIODIVERSITY, PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM
ABUSE AND PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS: WE HAVE REACHED OUR
GOALS
AccorHotels’ commitment to protecting biodiversity principally revolves around our Plant for the
Planet program. The principle is simple: when customers spend more than one night in a hotel,
we encourage them to use the same towels the next day. This way, we use less water, energy and
detergent, and channel some of the money we save into reforestation projects aimed at addressing
issues in areas near the hotels.
With the help of Tristan Lecomte – the man who founded Alter Eco and Pur Projet, an NGO that
specializes in community-driven forestry projects - Plant For The Planet has gathered considerable
momentum around the world since 2012. It now supports more than 150 projects in 25 countries.
At its 2015 General Meeting, AccorHotels asked its shareholders to vote on its “Tree resolution”
committing the Group to plant 10 million trees by 2021, and they voted in favor. Since this program
started in 2009, we have planted 4.5 million trees around the world, i.e. 1 tree every minute.
The Planet 21 commitment to promoting sustainable building picked up pace when HotelInvest
(AccorHotels’ property development, investment and management arm) rendered environmental
certification mandatory on all construction projects starting in 2015. In five years, this plan has inter
alia increased the number of certified owned hotels from 3 to 21.
The Group has for instance equipped the Novotel München City Arnulfpark, the complex at the
Olympic Park in Sydney and other hotels with solar power-generation and water-heating systems.
The Novotel Lausanne Bussigny in Switzerland was renovated a few years ago and is brimming with
eco-friendly features including rainwater recovery systems to sprinkle the lawn and supply public
toilet flushes, a rooftop garden to improve the building’s energy efficiency, an all-natural swimming
pool (using flora and fauna to filter the water instead of chlorine or salt), and heat-recovery systems
in public areas.
Our commitment to protecting children from abuse, which dates back more than 15 years and
became one of our top priorities in 2015, has triggered an extremely enthusiastic response throughout
our network, in particular around WATCH. This in-house program helps hotels to identify cases of
sexual exploitation involving children and to deal with them as effectively as possible. Practically all
hotels have committed to protecting children, exceeding our original objective by a wide margin. In
addition, 38 countries are working with ECPAT and have signed its Code of Conduct. AccorHotels
is also active on this front as a member of the Board of Directors of The Code (an industry-driven
initiative to support the fight against the sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism
sector) and of the UNWTO Network on Child Protection.
C. IN 5 YEARS, OVER 90% OF HOTELS HAVE OPTED INTO PLANET 21
AccorHotels’ Charter 21 has directed hotels’ efforts to achieve Planet 21 objectives over the past five
years. This management tool recommends 65 measures that hotels can take (spanning management,
energy, water and waste). It awards points to the hotels that take those measures, and those points
in turn entitle hotels to one of four statuses, namely Bronze (for meeting the baseline requirements),
Silver, Gold and Platinum (for the most committed ones). The results speak for themselves: over 90%
of hotel have achieved at least Bronze status under Charter 21 (up from 30% in 2012) and the number
of hotels that have reached higher levels has also grown (the percentage of Silver or higher hotels
rose from 11% in 2011 to 69% in 2015, and the percentage of Gold hotels increased from 2% on launch
to 30% over the same period).
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II- THE NEW PLANET 21 / 2016-2020 PROGRAM
A. BUILDING POSITIVE HOSPITALITY DAY AFTER DAY
In the words of Sustainable Development Director Arnaud Herrmann, “We have built this strategy
with every business line in the Group, and it picks up where the first Planet 21 program left off. But
it is also closer to the Group’s new business model. Over the next five years, we will be factoring
our social and environmental responsibility more and more into the Group’s strategic decisions,
working on projects that will leverage our efforts, stretching our commitments beyond our everyday
business, and investing in innovation to give rise to alternative business models.”
This program lays down the Group’s new commitments to its employees, customers, partners and
communities, and its decision to focus most particularly on F&B and Buildings.
> COMMITMENTS TO EMPLOYEES: WIDENING OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS AN
EMPLOYER TO BUILD A MORE INCLUSIVE COMPANY
Chief Talent & Culture Officer Arantxa Balson says, “‘Feel Valued’, our employer promise, means we
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want to serve as an inclusive company that cares about its employees’ wellbeing, is open to the
outside, hires and trains people locally, helps people find a way back from the fringes of society, and
embraces diversity.”
The Group’s commitments looking at 2020:
• Increase the employee engagement index
• Implement a health and wellbeing at work program in each country
• Ensure 35% of hotel general managers are women (by 2017)
• Increase employees’ perception of the Group’s high level of CSR engagement
The Group, selected by the UN Women program as one of the 10 pilot companies for the HetoShe
movement, renewed its commitment to have 35% of women GMs for 2017.
One example of social innovation: the initiative at the ibis Styles in Roissy
This hotel has tested a variety of pioneering approaches - spanning recruitment and integration,
working hours and hotel governance - and shown that they all work.
• It has pruned the hierarchy to streamline communication
• It runs 360° employee assessments
• An employee takes part in the management committee meeting each month
• It has annualized working hours and employees set their own schedules
> COMMITMENTS TO CUSTOMERS: ENHANCE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES BY
STEPPING UP SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Travelers are increasingly receptive to social and environmental issues. The Group recently published
the findings in its customer survey, which showed that more than 80% of guests try to avoid wasting
food at home, buy energy-efficient household appliances, and screen their waste. They are also
willing to get involved alongside hoteliers: 70% say they are no less concerned about sustainable
development when they stay at hotels than when they are at home.
Planet 21 aims to treat customers to more responsible experiences in hotels, and to enlist them in
efforts to spread the benefits that AccorHotels is bringing about through its commitments.
The Group’s commitments looking to 2020:
• Introduce one major innovation to interact with our guests around sustainable development
each year
• Eco-design products in the 10 key hospitality categories (bedding, bathroom amenities,
paint, carpets, cleaning products, sheets and towels, furniture, stationery, disposables, and gifts
and goodies)
• Require 100% of our hotels to implement Planet 21’s 16 mandatory actions
The new feature in 2016: the Group will add a calculator to the AccorHotels app to tell guests about
their stay’s environmental and economic impact (water consumption, carbon emissions, jobs created
or supported). It will provide an opportunity for them to act positively by paying for a tree under the
Plant for the Planet program. We are also looking at other digital applications.
> COMMITMENTS TO PARTNERS: INNOVATE TOGETHER TO OPEN UP NEW
OPPORTUNITIES AND TAKE POSITIVE HOSPITALITY TO NEW HEIGHTS
AccorHotels’ activity and performance are closely linked to those of their partners – suppliers and
hotel owners under management or franchise contracts. These partnerships are also opportunities
to develop all-new solutions or deals centered on sustainable development.
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The Group’s commitments looking at 2020:
• Introduce one major innovation to develop alternative and responsible models each year
• Deploy our “CSR & ethical risks management” process among 100% of our partners (owners
and nominated suppliers) and provide support mechanisms to help them make progress
A few examples:
• Team up with suppliers to work together towards the main Planet 21 objectives (reducing
waste at source, supporting the circular economy, developing a choice of healthy and sustainable
F&B deals, transitioning towards smarter and low-carbon buildings)
• Invest in startups or social enterprises working in the circular and positive economy, to spur a
range of sustainable travel deals, services and industry subsectors (for example to reuse furniture
approaching the end of its useful life, recycle soap bars that guests have not finished, or provide
eco-friendly laundry services)
> COMMITMENTS TO COMMUNITIES: PLAY AN ACTIVE ROLE WITH
COMMUNITIES BY SUPPORTING LOCAL INITIATIVES
The Group’s 3,900 hotels in almost 100 countries worldwide have deep roots in their local economies
and nurture economic and social development in their environments.
The Group’s commitments looking at 2020:
• Engage in community work and social projects, in particular the ones backed by Solidarity
AccorHotels, the Group’s endowment fund, which helps people on the fringes of society to
find a way back in through employment. In France, for example, Solidarity AccorHotels supports La
Table de Cana, a non-profit that trains women living in precarious circumstances to work in
kitchens. AccorHotels’ five chefs in the area are playing a key role in this learning process.
• Protect children from sexual abuse by persistently raising team and customer awareness
of the issue and constantly cooperating with partner law-enforcement agencies, experts and
local NGOs.
• Plant 10 million trees by 2021 and support agroforestry with the Plant For The Planet program.
To achieve this bold goal, all hotels will join the program (as part of the baseline requirements)
and this initiative will be included in all management and franchise contracts.
B. TWO TOP PRIORITIES FOR 2020: F&B AND BUILDINGS
The Group is focusing especially on these two areas – F&B and Buildings (construction, renovation
and consumption) - to tackle the environmental and social challenges on the road to 2020.
E- F&B: SERVING GUESTS HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE MEALS, AND
ELIMINATING FOOD WASTE
F&B is a major issue for the Group, its hotels and its restaurants. By serving healthy and balanced
meals, AccorHotels is concurrently supporting the farming sector’s shift towards higher-quality
produce and a more local business model. The Group is also committed to slashing food waste
(more than 30% of the world’s food production is wasted*), to contribute to mitigating famines and
reducing the farming sector’s negative environmental impacts.
* According to a UN study on food and agriculture published in 2012
The Group’s commitments in Planet 21:
1. Reduce food waste in the Group by 30%:first, do an audit of food waste volumes in restaurants,
which requires weighing the products thrown away in kitchens. Objectives: assess the main
waste items and set up an appropriate action plan.
2. Apply a charter on sustainable food in 100% of the restaurants, to promote healthy food from
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eco-friendly supply chains, preferably through short circuits, and enhance social performance
3. Support urban agriculture by planting 1,000 vegetable gardens in our hotels
Examples of hotels’ efforts to reduce food waste:
The Novotel Nantes Carquefou (France) reuses leftover pastries from breakfast to prepare puddings.
The Pullman in Auckland (New Zealand) makes marmalade from the oranges it uses to make juice
for breakfast. The MGallery Hotel St-Moritz in Queenstown (New Zealand) turns leftover milk into
cheese.
The Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit in Thailand is one of the pilot hotels testing a system to measure and
monitor its food waste, and an action plan to reduce it. The hotel has seen a 50% drop in its food
waste (by value) in four months. (see video)
BUILDINGS: EMBARK HOTELS ON
ENERGY TRANSITION BY AIMING FOR
CARBON-NEUTRAL BUILDINGS
AccorHotels owns over 30% of its hotels.
Embarking hotels on the energy transition path
means designing more and more carbon-neutral
buildings, as well as renovating existing ones with
a view to enhancing energy efficiency.
Novotel Muenchen City Arnulfpark - Munich – Allemagne
The Group’s commitments in Planet 21:
- Ensure 100% of renovated or new hotels are low-carbon buildings
- Reduce energy and water consumption by 5% looking to 2018 (for owned hotels and hotels
under management contract)
- Recover 65% of waste from hotel operations
Examples of hotels embarking on the energy transition:
The Sofitel The Palm Dubai, on Palm Jumeirah archipelago, opened in 2013 and was designed for
energy efficiency. Its features include:
• Tile roofs (made of insulating materials that reflect the sun’s rays)
• Double glazing
• Energy-efficient air conditioning
• Heat-recovery systems
• Presence sensors to switch corridor lights on and off
• 530 sqm of solar panels covering 45% of hot water requirements
The Novotel München City Arnulfpark, which opened in September 2015, earned German DGNB
certification for energy efficiency. The features include:
• Insulating glazing
• 100% LED lighting
• Heat-recovery systems
• District heating (which is more energy-efficient and releases less carbon than a standalone
heating system)
• 163 sqm of solar panels generating approximately 20,000 kWh a year
To reduce its carbon impact and embark its hotels on the energy transition path, AccorHotels is
joining trailblazing initiatives such as Energy Observer, an experimental catamaran packed with the
latest renewable-energy technology, with the goal of deploying these technologies later in its hotels.
8C. PUTTING HOTELS AT THE CENTER OF OUR COMMITMENTS: ACTING HERE!
Charter 21, our in-house environmental management system for hoteliers, is becoming Planet 21
in Action. The goal is to simplify the system and enhance its efficiency. Planet 21 in Action is more
flexible, aims higher, and encompasses environmental management as well as social initiatives. It is
more accommodating as regards local specifics and operations because it is based on a participative
approach allowing each hotel to set its own objectives and map out its own action plan.
It sets 16 mandatory measures for all hotels, earning them Bronze status.** To upgrade their status
(to Silver, Gold and Platinum), hotels then select the initiatives they want to take among a list of best
practices already in use.
This approach to drive progress is based on a new application intended to be the central platform for
managing sustainable development and technical approaches (maintenance, security of installations,
etc…). To be rolled out during 2016, this IT tool will replace OPEN, the existing tool for monitoring
Planet 21. OPEN is currently used by over 5,000 people and is available in 8 languages.
9**THE 16 MANDATORY MEASURES TO EARN BRONZE STATUS
Employees
1. Appoint a Planet 21 leader.
2. Raise employee awareness of compliance with the Group’s ethical rules and values.
3. Raise employee awareness of eco-friendly ways of doing their jobs.
Customers
4. Reuse sheets by default if guests stay more than one night.
5. Provide eco-friendly hotel amenities (shower gel, soap, shampoo).
6. Display the key Planet 21 communication markers.
7. Use eco-certified cleaning products.
Communities
8.Take part in the Plant for the Planet program.
9.Apply the WATCH child protection program.
F&B
10. Ban endangered fish species.
Buildings
11. Measure and analyze water and energy consumptions every month, take action if there is any
problem.
12. Apply the standard for water flows in all showers, faucets and toilets.
13. Ensure that all wastewater is properly treated.
14. Use energy-saving lamps.
15. Recycle all hazardous waste in the appropriate streams.
16. Recycle at least two types of waste (paper, glass, cardboard or plastic).
10ANNEXE I : PLANET 21 2011-2015 : RESULTS 11
ANNEXE II– EXTERNAL INPUTS
Definition of our program looking to 2020 is based on a factual approach drawing on what we
have learned over the past five years, experience on the ground and three studies: update of our
environmental footprint, publication of the first socio-economic footprint and a survey of guests’
expectations.
A. ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT
In 2015, the Group updated its study of the environmental impacts generated across the whole life
cycle. The analysis methodology was tightened, and the study highlights three levers for action
looking to 2020:
- Energy consumption in the hotels: 84% of non-renewable energy is consumed directly in the
hotels – it is responsible for 3/4 of CO2 emissions.
- Water consumption and pollution in the hotels: water consumption must be optimized and
tackled in line with the level of water stress in the regions where the hotels are located
- F&B: customers’ meals and beverages account for 87% of our impact on biodiversity and 79%
of the marine eutrophication we cause.
B. SOCIO-ECONOMIC FOOTPRINT
AccorHotels published the first study of its socio-economic footprint so as to quantify and analyze
the impact of its activities on both the local and global economy. It supports almost 1 million jobs
worldwide and the great majority of these jobs are local, in the immediate vicinity of the hotels.
Drawing on these findings, AccorHotels has made communities a major pillar of its new program, so
as to strengthen its positive impacts on these communities and mitigate the negative repercussions
that could arise from its development.
C. GUEST SURVEY
A 2015 study involving 7,000 guests in eight countries enabled closer identification of their
expectations and level of engagement in terms of sustainable development in our hotels.
Three lessons drawn from this study:
1. Guests are aware of the need to act and do so on a daily basis at home
2. Guests are willing to behave as responsibly in hotels as they do at home
3. Guests expect hotels to show they are serious about their commitments with concrete and,
more importantly, visible actions.
Key figures from the survey:
Guests engaged on an everyday level
• 85% of AccorHotels guests try to avoid wasting food at home.
• 82% buy energy-efficient household appliances.
• 81% sort their waste.
• 76% try to purchase locally produced products.
Guests ready to get personally involved:
• 70% of guests are no less concerned about sustainable development when they stay at hotels
than when they are at home.
• 2 out of 3 customers are willing to pay a little more to stay at a hotel that is taking action
responsibly.
• More than 60% are willing to receive their invoice by email and sort their waste in the hotel.
• 57% are happy to re-use their towels and sheets for two or three days.
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