RADISSON HOTEL GROUP
“ By being a responsible citizen and by having impactful sustainability actions in place , you ' re actually going to make it safer for your company to operate ”
INGE HUIJBRECHTS GLOBAL SENIOR VP , SUSTAINABILITY , SECURITY AND CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
When it was still called Radisson SAS , it was the first hospitality company to have an environmental policy . This was back in 1989 , when the Berlin Wall still divided East and West Berlin , smoking was allowed on airplanes , and the world wide web ( internet ) was born . It helps that Radisson has its roots in the Nordics , in Scandinavian countries with forwardthinking attitudes that are now really catching on around the world .
However , when it comes to sustainability , every company on the planet is shouting about their credentials and it ’ s hard for many consumers to cut through that noise and discern how they can make responsible choices .
“ I think we have a role as a company and an industry to make sustainability easy to understand for travellers and consumers ,” agrees Inge . “ And that ' s one of the things that I ' m trying to realise now together with my CEO and our owners , Jin Jiang International , together with hotel and travel industry associations , to bring something together that can be the global hotel sustainability standard .”
Inge outlines that there is currently a great deal of information and a number of frameworks available , but sees an opportunity for a basic standard for sustainability that is widely supported by all tourism stakeholders . Hotels that meet this basic level should be able to display some kind of symbol , like a green icon . You could take that concept further of course , in the same way that hotels have a star rating system , that could be extended to a hotel ’ s sustainability credentials – allowing consumers to make better informed choices .
Carbon neutral ambitions ‘ Carbon neutral ’ is another one of those phrases that we hear all the time and can be misleading for consumers . As well as reducing your carbon footprint as much as possible , most businesses need to offset their remaining footprint , and it ’ s important to provide transparency on each element .
Inge says there are very few companies who are genuinely carbon neutral just by zeroing their footprint in their core activity . When you are talking about buildings and 24 / 7 operations around the world , it ’ s almost impossible , so you have to include offsetting as the last step in the plan .
“ We are the only hotel company with 100 % carbon neutral meetings and events worldwide at no cost to the client ,” says Inge . “ It means we offset the footprint of all our meeting and events spaces worldwide .
“ First , we aim to reduce the meeting location ’ s footprint to a maximum and then , we offset the remaining carbon emissions . For instance , in the Radisson Blu Hotel Basel , which is the hotel you see on my Teams background , they ' ve made
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