Preview: IHG Unveils New Responsible Business Targets

05 Mar 2018

IHG Unveils New Responsible Business Targets

Tags: IHG, Responsible Travel, Responsible Tourism, Sustainability, Sustainable Tourism, Hotels

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG®), one of the world's leading hotel companies, has today announced ambitious new Responsible Business targets to 2020, alongside details of the good progress we delivered against our previous five-year targets.

Published today in our online 2017 Responsible Business Report, our new 2018-2020 targets focus on four areas where we feel we can have the most positive impact: environmental sustainability, community impact, our people and responsible procurement.

Keith Barr, Chief Executive Officer, IHG, commented: “Many companies have responsible business commitments, but with hotels in local communities all over the world, IHG touches the lives of millions of people. This puts us in a unique position to make a real difference – whether that be doing the right thing for the environment, providing skills and employment to local people, or stepping up to help communities in times of need.

“We are very proud of our achievements against our five-year responsible business targets, which reflect the dedication and support of our people, hotel owners and partners globally. However, we know that there's always more to do and our new targets are a testament to our ongoing commitment to build on our successes and to play an ever more positive role in local communities around the world.”

Achievements against our 2013-2017 targets

We delivered good results against our 2013-2017 targets. This included progress in a number of areas, such as driving a reduction in carbon and water usage across our hotels globally and providing skills to thousands of people living in the local communities around them. We also gained significant external recognition for our efforts, including being crowned an industry leader for sustainability in the 2017 S&P Dow Jones Sustainability Indices – the most prestigious global benchmarks for corporate economic, environmental and social performance.

2013-2017 target	Target achieved	Progress
Provide skills and improved employability to 40,000 people via the IHG® Academy	Yes	Through the IHG® Academy, we continued to improve people's employability, by partnering with local community organisations and education providers to grow careers in the hospitality industry. Nearly 50,000 people have benefitted from the IHG® Academy since 2013. In 2017 alone, IHG provided skills to nearly 14,000 IHG® Academy participants. This represented our most successful year to date.
Reduce carbon footprint per occupied room by 12%	Yes	Driven by the ongoing success of the IHG Green Engage™ system, our group-wide sustainability programme, we reduced our carbon footprint per occupied room by 15%, including a 27% reduction across our managed hotels.
Reduce water use per occupied room in water-stressed areas by 12%	No	Through our IHG Green Engage™ system and water stewardship activities we reduced water use per occupied room in water-stressed areas by 5% from 2013-2017. Although we did not achieve our five-year target of 12%, we drove a 15% reduction in water use across our managed hotels.
In 2013, we also promised to: Track and report diversity within IHG's supply chain Integrate corporate responsibility criteria into the selection and evaluation process for all preferred suppliers	Yes Yes	IHG's spend with diverse suppliers in 2017 was $66 million, versus $59 million in 2016. All new suppliers are required to sign IHG's Vendor Code of Conduct as part of the process of becoming a preferred supplier.

Our 2018-2020 Responsible Business targets

Building on our successes, we have worked closely with our owners, suppliers, colleagues and external stakeholders to set 11 new targets that will guide our work over the next three years. These stretching targets focus on four areas where we feel we can make the greatest positive impact – environmental sustainability, community impact, our people, and responsible procurement. They are also designed to support several of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Environmental sustainability	Community impact	Our people	Responsible procurement
Reduce carbon footprint per occupied room by 6-7%	Provide hospitality skills to 30,000-40,000 people through the IHG Academy	Increase % of diversity among IHG Senior Leaders (in terms of gender & nationality / ethnicity)	Increase % of supplier risk profiles and audits for IHG preferred suppliers
Launch two water stewardship projects per year	Raise $3 million to support communities through the IHG Foundation1	Increase % female representation in managed hotel GM and operations roles	Increase ethical supplier awareness across corporate and hotel teams
	Involve 100,000 colleagues in IHG Foundation Week and other related events each year	Track and report employee engagement each year	Increase % of IHG preferred suppliers that meet IHG Green Criteria2

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