Sue Williams MI FIH is heading up the Hoteliers’ Charter’s new sustainability initiative as a Charter Board Member, along with her well-established network of sustainable and emission reducing experts.
Sue has submerged herself in the subject of sustainability since February 2019 and learnt by doing, and used lockdown to advance her knowledge by being the first UK hotelier to enrol on the Cambridge Institute of sustainable leaderships, short course on Business Transitioning to Net Zero Emissions.
To add further value to our Charter Hoteliers, we wanted to provide an additional focus to points 8, 9 and 10 of the Charter by sharing knowledge and best practice in these specific areas.
Point 8 reflects our need as a sector to drive the sustainability agenda to support the delivery of the UN’s directive to achieve Net Zero carbon emission in our businesses. A reduction of 50% by 2030 and on to 100% by 2050 is today’s target. This timeline is being reduced as we have already exhausted our Carbon Budget and our actions needing to be even more rapid. It has now become the most pressing subject of the decade.
The ninth commitment highlights our need to Advocate diversity, inclusion and equality, offering English lessons to colleagues where required and taking practical measures to make hotels accessible for all disabilities.
The final point is focused on bring sharp focus to the modern-day slavery Act 2015. It’s believed there is over 40 million people caught in slavery in one form or another in present day society. This will require deep collaboration with our supply chain.
When you embark on your properties sustainability journey you will need to create a strategy with a clear timeline and milestones, before embedding it deeply across your hotel.
This is without doubt this is a complex subject but we are no longer able to consider this optional in our operations. Soon it will be demanded of us all by Government and swiftly followed by Climate Change Levy’s (CCL) for those not complying.
COP26 (Conference Of Parties) is taking place in Glasgow, commencing 31 October 2021, at which there will be 100 world leaders expressly gathered to progress Climate Change actions in line with the United Nations directives. Post-COP we will all experience a step change in the drive to reduce emissions rapidly.
To help support our Charter members it is our intention for generate a broad range or “How to” fact sheets which we hope you will be able to utilise when you implement or further your sustainable strategies. With this supporting literature we aim to cut through the jargon and prevent challenges in our busy operations.
More details will be shared in the coming weeks.
