AccorHotels, the world’s leading hotel operator, is delighted to announce that its luxury division has won the ‘Commitment to Positive Change’ award from UK-based Luxury Briefing.
The award was given to AccorHotels in recognition of its wide-ranging efforts to bring about change internationally. The judges were unanimous in applauding “the sheer scale and scope of AccorHotels’ ambitious initiatives that have the potential to affect a huge number of people worldwide”, especially the local programmes which train and employ disadvantaged people, alongside the broader global initiatives like Planet 21, the group’s sustainable development programme. The judges felt that AccorHotels is “genuinely using its power and financial muscle to make the world a better place”.
The Luxury Briefing Awards recognise the diversity of talent, ideas and excellence across the luxury industry. It introduced the Commitment to Positive Change category last year, when it was won by Stella McCartney. The award was decided by a panel of judges including Sir Eric Peacock, Chair at Luxury Briefing, designer Sebastian Conran, Renee Kuo, MD of Debretts, Michael Wainwright, Founder of Boodles and Melanie Grant, Luxury Editor at The Economist.
AccorHotels is now the second largest operator of luxury hotels worldwide with brands such as Raffles, Fairmont and Sofitel amongst its portfolio, and is the leader in luxury private residence rental with more than 10,000 stunning properties around the world
One of the community engagement projects funded by Solidarity AccorHotels, the group’s endowment fund, is Hospitality Futures, which helps people in the UK who are unemployed, not in education or training and may have had barriers to employment to get on to the career ladder by providing a range of skills to support candidates into a career within the hospitality sector. Earlier in 2018, 16 unemployed Londoners graduated from the Hospitality Futures programme, a six-week course to teach participants about the hospitality industry.
Sophie Kilic, Senior Vice President, Talent & Culture, AccorHotels UK & Ireland said: “We are thrilled to have been given this award in recognition of the hard work of everyone at AccorHotels in driving change. We aim to have a positive impact on the environment, the people who work with us and stay in our hotels, and the communities we operate in. We are delighted this award has recognised the passion great work of our teams in driving initiatives such as Hospitality Futures and our Planet 21 sustainable development programme, among many others which all contribute to driving positive change.”
Planet 21, AccorHotels sustainable development programme, has set out key targets over the current five-year period, including a 30% reduction in food waste, the creation of 1,000 urban vegetable gardens in hotels worldwide by 2020, achieving carbon neutral buildings and reducing energy consumption by 5% per room across the group’s owned, leased and managed hotels. The programme includes numerous initiatives such as Plant for the Planet, a reforestation programme under which AccorHotels has committed to financing the planting of 10 million trees by 2021, using the money saved when guests choose to reuse their towels rather than send them to be washed.
The Luxury Briefing Awards were presented at a ceremony at The Savoy on Monday 5th November.