Accorhotels has committed to take positive actions to support environmental sustainability through Planet 21, a global eco-friendly activity programme. Planet 21 has been running since last year and brings high value impact to guests, communities and partners.
Through Planet 21, AccorHotels, which is present in 1,700 cities worldwide including in Indonesia, aims to achieve several milestones
In Asia Pacific, more than 140 AccorHotels have already installed urban vegetable gardens, including in Indonesia. AtFairmont Jakarta, for instance, the culinary team plants herbs for kitchen needs like cooking, marinating, crust topping and also garnishing. The homegrown herbs include mint, rosemary, lavender and thyme. Mercure Bali Sanur Resort also plants fruits and vegetables in its own garden, such as tomatoes, eggplants, mushroom as well as herbs and spices. The garden serves as green education area for guests pertaining the environment protection programme. AccorHotels plans to plants 1,000 vegetable gardens by 2020.
To reduce food waste, as many as 38 hotels in 13 countries are already using connected solutions to fight food waste in their kitchens and restaurants. The initiative has cut food waste by nearly 60% in the pilot hotel’s kitchens with a total of IDR 7 billion in estimated savings.
Since 2016, AccorHotels in Greater Jakarta and Tangerang have affirmed their collaboration with the Emmanuel Foundation by supporting its “Food Rescue” programme. They regularly take perishable and prepared food from the hotels to distribute it among underprivileged (and often malnourished) communities. By the end of 2016, 11 AccorHotels participated actively in this programme and produced 6,206 kg of food to support 31.627 families in 16 kampongs (villages) in Jakarta and surrounding areas.
One of Planet 21’s key priorities is to achieve carbon neutral buildings. Last year, the group management cut its energy consumption by 2.4% and CO² emissions by 3%. These results are even more encouraging because they were achieved despite particularly unfavorable world weather conditions in 2016. Since 2015, the demand for heating and air-conditioning increased more than 4%. In Asia Pacific, some hotels are using air–conditioning with frictionless chillers and magnetic bearing compressor technology.
Focusing on one of four major action areas of Planet 21, the community, this year AccorHotels in Jakarta and Tangerang region held an “Acting Here” event involving 60 children with disabilities from the State Elementary School for Disabilities 01 Lebak Bulus, Jakarta. The programme aims to provide support and motivation for children with disabilities to encourage them to work in the hospitality industry. Motivation classes with successful disabled employees from Fairmont Jakarta were organized, as well as preliminary trainings such as decorative towels folding, cooking classes and table settings. On the same occasion, the Emmanuel Foundation presented the positive results fromits initiative with AccorHotels since 2016.
