ACCORHOTELS TO CULTIVATE VEGETABLES AT 1000 PROPERTIES TO REDUCE FOOD WASTAGE
Do you know every year one-third of the world’s food harvest goes to waste? We are talking about 1.3 billion tonnes of food here! Considering the fact that more than 20,000 people die everyday due to hunger and hunger related causes, it’s a huge waste. But the good news is that at least one international hotel chain giant has started doing something to make things right.
Paris based hospitality group, AccorHotels runs one of the largest and most successful chains of hotels in the world. They currently operate approx 3900 hotels, spread across 92 countries. Hotel groups like Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure and Ibis are some of the brands that AccorHotels owns at the moment. This hospitality giant has planned to cultivate vegetables at 1000 of its hotel sites in an attempt to cut down one-third of its food wastage by 2020.
They are aiming to diminish their food wastage to zero percent and this initiative is the first major step in that direction. Sebastien Bazin, the CEO of AccorHotels stated recently that since they serve 200 million meals every year, they will focus specifically on offering healthy and responsible recipes to their guests and on curtailing food waste in their restaurants.
“In the wake of the 21st conference on climate change, we took the lessons we had learned from our previous program and used them to shape our vision for 2020: Drive the change towards positive hospitality wherever we are”, said Bazin.
As per a report published in AFP, AccorHotels intends to cut food wastage by 30 percent, primarily by growing vegetables and other food sources locally. AccorHotels recently rolled out its new Corporate Social Responsibility Commitments that outlined a certain set of goals they will try to achieve by 2020. These goals include –
- Cutting down food wastage by 30 percent.
- 100 percent low-carbon new buildings and for those properties, which they already own, certain renovations will be made to achieve this goal.
- Construction of urban vegetable gardens at 1000 of its properties.
AccorHotel’s food operations head, Amir Nahai elaborated on the issue by saying that they will trim down their restaurant menus that offer more than 40 main-course dishes. “In the future we’re going to have menus with 10, 15 or 20 main courses, with more local products” he added. And that’s not all – the company is coming up with a number of ways to cut down wastage. They will recycle orange peels to make marmalades, they will recycle used soaps and distribute them to communities who might need them and they are also planning to improve their energy efficiency.
CEO Bazin wants to encourage the hospitality industry to adopt more environmental-friendly practices with the help of this new 5-year plan. AccorHotels had reportedly reduced their water consumption by approx 9 percent and energy consumption by 5 percent by the end of their previous 5-year plan.
