In a recent media release Hyatt has reiterated its commitment to environmental stewardship with a focus on energy, waste and water reduction, sustainable building, supply chain management as well as stakeholder engagement. In Hyatt’s Corporate Responsibility Report, the listed hotel corporation has unveiled an aggressive set of environmental goals for the year 2020, all designed to strengthen Hyatt’s collective ability to collaborate, inspire and further its commitment to environmental stewardship. Hyatt has also defined a suite of measurable and actionable targets. Hyatt hotels aim to create a more sustainable future for themselves and for their neighbours. The hotel group posits that the conservation efforts have reaped fruit, resulting in major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and water and energy usage by property across their portfolio. Hyatt maintains that its commitment to environmental stewardship touches every aspect of its business, from the way how the hotels are built and operated, to the way they collaborate with their global supply chain, to the way the hotel chain influences change through the passion and commitment of its employees around the world.• Build Smart: Hyatt will work closely with stakeholders to increase the focus on building more efficient, environmentally conscious hotels across the enterprise. Beginning in 2015, all new construction and major renovation projects contracted for Hyatt managed hotels will be expected to follow enhanced sustainable design guidelines. Hyatt will lead this initiative by mandating that all new construction and major renovation projects for wholly owned full service hotels and resorts achieve LEED certification, or an equivalent certification.
• Innovate and Inspire: This goal reflects Hyatt’s commitment to be a catalyst for bringing more hearts, hands and minds to the table to help advance environmental sustainability around the world. This includes Hyatt’s commitment to create a funding mechanism to support the innovation, ideation and acceleration of sustainable solutions within its hotels that can be replicated across the Hyatt portfolio, as well as the broader hospitality industry” (Hyatt Corporate Responsibility Report, 2013/2014).
Reporting Progress
Hyatt’s reported some of its major milestones, including:
• “The launch of Ready to Thrive, Hyatt’s global corporate philanthropy program focused on literacy and career readiness, which included a $750,000 investment in career readiness programs in Brazil.
• Building 11 libraries and supporting reading and writing programs in 30 schools through a new partnership with Room to Read, impacting 30,000 students in India.
• Donating 35,000 books to kids in need across the globe through We Give Books and Room to Read.
• Donating more than 100,000 volunteer hours in 2013 – a 69 percent increase from 2012.
• More than 80 percent of Hyatt hotels recycling at least one or more waste streams.
• A reduction in resource use intensity in each of Hyatt’s three regions compared to 2006 – up to a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, up to a 13 percent reduction in energy and up to a 15 percent reduction in water.
• Development of responsible seafood sourcing goals based on a global purchasing audit in partnership with World Wildlife Fund.
• Required more than 40,000 of its global associates — including housekeepers, front office, concierge, guest services, key service and security personnel, and all management-level colleagues — to complete Human Trafficking Prevention Training. Hyatt also implemented a standard for all of its hotels to have training measures in place” (Hyatt Corporate Responsibility Report, 2013/2014).
Sources:
Hyatt Thrive: http://thrive.hyatt.com/en/thrive.html
Hyatt Corporate Responsibility Report (2013-2014): http://thrive.hyatt.com/content/dam/Minisites/hyattthrive/Hyatt%20Corporate%20Responsibility%20Report-2013-2014.pdf
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