2013-04-23 — /travelprnews.com/ — After nearly 20 years of environmental commitment, last April 21, Accor again demonstrated its pioneering spirit when it launched PLANET 21. A year on, the group’s sustainable development program has won over customers and employees alike and modified behaviors. The first results, both environmental and societal, are already visible!
“Here we are serious about sustainability!”
With PLANET 21, Accor has set itself a series of ambitious objectives for 2015. These objectives are structured into seven pillars (health, nature, carbon, innovation, local development, employment and dialogue) and 21 commitments.
To ensure that PLANET 21 takes hold in the daily operations of its 3,500 hotels and thus contribute to reinventing hotels sustainably, Accor has introduced an innovative new system to monitor its hotels’ sustainable development performance. This system, based on four performance levels (bronze, silver, gold and platinum), guides and encourages Accor brand hoteliers as they implement their sustainability measures.
“A year after the launch of PLANET 21, data analysis reflects a positive impact and the growing involvement of our hoteliers,” explains Sophie Flak, Executive Vice President Sustainable Development and Académie Accor. “At the beginning of 2012, 76% of the hotels did not yet meet PLANET 21’s minimum requisite standards (bronze level); but one year later, 60% of them now meet at least the minimum bronze level requirements, and 31% are now certified sustainable hotels1”.
Today’s hotel guests say they are increasingly concerned about sustainable development issues, and these standards provide them with the guarantee that their Accor brand hotel has taken action in this field. For example, it monitors and analyzes its water and energy consumption, uses eco-friendly cleaning products, water flow regulators and low consumption lamps, offers well-balanced dishes on its menu or combats child sex tourism.
We have successfully improved the environmental and societal performance level of our hotels largely through the wide-scale deployment of a dedicated e-learning course in eight languages created by and for the hoteliers. This tool has already enabled us to train over 16,000 employees, including 5,000 in France.
Plant for the Planet: agroforestry projects for the hotels’ local communities Accor’s reforestation program, Plant for the Planet, is proof of our hotels’ growing commitment to sustainable development. This year, the program took on new momentum by increasing support for local agroforestry projects in the hotels’ own communities.
Since the launch of PLANET 21 and the establishment of the partnership with Pur Projet and Tristan Lecomte, 13 new plantations have been inaugurated around the world, in collaboration with small local producers. They add to the group’s six historic reforestation projects. Seven other plantations will be started before the end of the year.
In France, Accor hotels increased their commitment to protecting their communities’ ecosystems and encouraging local economic and social development by inaugurating seven new plantation plots last January. To celebrate PLANET 21’s first anniversary, ibis hotels in France will now finance the planting of 5,000 trees in a forestry unit in Lower Normandy that was damaged by a series of storms.
1,400 hotels have joined the Plant for the Planet program since it was launched in 2009. These hotels use the following formula to encourage their guests to reuse their towels: “in this hotel, five reused towels = one tree planted.” So far, thanks to the laundry savings generated by this program, the hotels have funded the planting of three million trees.
Accor Foundation Accor at the heart of the group’s societal commitment
For the last five years, the Accor Foundation has helped support Accor employees’ solidarity projects, with a view to linking cultures and providing support for the development of individuals and their integration into their environment. In all, over 6,000 employees are already involved and 151 projects have received funding, thus directly benefiting over 70,000 people in 35 countries.
In 2012, the Accor Foundation supported 41 new solidarity projects in which Accor employees are involved: 33 training and insertion projects, four projects to promote local know-how, and four humanitarian and emergency projects.
In France, 21 new projects have been supported thanks to the commitment of our employees. For instance, the Accor Foundation is funding the renovation of the Fort Saint-Nicolas gunpowder factory located on the edge of the Old Port of Marseilles. In that purpose, the Foundation has joined forces with Acta Vista to set up a program providing training in restoring national heritage buildings. This initiative is specially designed to train disadvantaged people and foster their professional integration.
Accor has also been involved since 2001 in pioneering the fight against the sexual exploitation of children in partnership with ECPAT2 International. In 2012, over 30,000 employees working in Accor hotels around the world received training in how to combat child sex tourism. To date, 36 countries have signed the World Tourism Organization’s “Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children”.
Accor, the world’s leading hotel operator and market leader in Europe, is present in 92 countries with more than 3,500 hotels and 450,000 rooms. Accor’s broad portfolio of hotel brands – Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Adagio, ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget and hotelF1 – provide an extensive offer from luxury to budget. With more than 160,000 employees in Accor brand hotels worldwide, the Group offers its clients and partners 45 years of know-how and expertise.
www.accor.com | www.accorhotels.com
1
Excluding the budget hotel segment.
30% have implemented the 10 actions required to meet the bronze performance level, 24% the 20 actions required for the silver level, 6% the 30 actions for the gold level and 0.6% the 40 actions for the platinum level.
2
End of Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes
Accor press contacts
Charlotte Bourgeois-Cleary
VP Global Media Relations
charlotte.bourgeois@accor.com
Delphine Dumonceau
Tel: +33(0)1 45 38 84 95
delphine.dumonceau@accor.com