InterContinental Hotels Group recognised with ‘Green Hotel Chain of the Year’ accolade
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InterContinental Hotels Group recognised with ‘Green Hotel Chain of the Year’ accolade
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) was recognised among industry peers and sustainable leaders last week, taking home the ‘Green Hotel Chain of the Year’ accolade in the inaugural Finder Green Awards.
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IHGAn artist's impression of the voco Sydney Central Hotel.
InterContinental Hotels Group has been given a "much-needed" boost with the brand winning 'Green Hotel Chain of the Year' at the inaugural Finder Green Awards.
Based on the responses of more than 1000 customers, the awards showed 47 per cent of Aussies were actively looking for 'greener' products or services' while over a quarter (76 per cent) believe it's hard to know which products or services are truly better for the environment.
Finder measured all category nominees against broad environmental metrics including greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy usage and waste avoiding landfill.
Leanne Harwood, Managing Director, IHG Australasia & Japan said sustainability remained as important as ever to the brand's business and hotels.
“None of us can go at this alone," she said.
"Our corporate responsibility roadmap goes hand-in-hand with strong commitment and partnership with our hotel teams and owners, and we will continue to keep on testing, learning and innovating together.”
Leanne Harwood, Managing Director, IHG Australasia & Japan. Source: IHG
Sustainability steps taken by IHG throughout the past 12 months included migrating the global estate of over 5,900 hotels and 880,000 guest rooms to bulk-size bathroom amenities, with the transition to be completed during 2021.
The group also signed a partnership with OzHarvest to focus on food rescue from the hotels, as well as investing in the ‘Nourish’ program to provide at-risk youth with training and qualifications in hospitality skills.
From September to February, the food rescue program saw approximately 1,500kgs rescued from various IHG hotels and resorts across the country, equating to almost 5,000 meals and about 350kg of food per month rescued.
IHG’s crusade on waste continues in 2020 and beyond, with further resources and initiatives spanning across healthy and sustainable food sourcing, in-room power saving technology, water scarcity, and reduced energy, food and plastic consumption.
A voco Gold Coast Superior Bedroom. Source: IHG
Investment into new technology has seen Winnow piloted across several IHG Hotels & Resort. The AI technology identifies waste weight, the dollar value of the waste and the equivalent meals that the waste could have supplied, allowing IHG restaurant and bars to reengineer their offering for greener results.
In Australasia, voco Kirkton Park Hunter Valley has been championing greener travel with its own solar farm, Trees for Bees program and its onsite veggie garden (able to produce up to 60 per cent of ingredients into the restaurants), while voco Gold Coast is home to over 300,000 bees to support its produce.
Hayman Island by InterContinental has rolled out innovative technology with its unique glass-to-sand crusher and resort-wide pledge against non-reef-safe sunscreen, and the Holiday Inn Express hotels have led the way in design standards in energy efficiency, drawing on a $39 million investment commitment from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
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