Holiday Inn 2011 Annual Report Download - page 34

32 IHG Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement 2011
GREAT BUSINESS SENSE
We believe the hotel industry is uniquely
placed to make a real difference in the
world. Travel and tourism is one of the
world’s largest industries, generating
nine per cent of global GDP and
supporting 260 million jobs worldwide
(World Travel & Tourism Council). By
2021, travel and tourism is predicted to
create 69 million more jobs (World Travel
& Tourism Council). To calculate the
contribution made by IHG hotels, we
asked Oxford Economics to analyse the
impact of our operations in the US, UK
and Brazilian economies. Their report
estimates that our hotels support close
to two million jobs globally. Furthermore,
we know that each dollar spent at an IHG
hotel multiplies through the economy
six to seven times. This reinforces our
conviction that behaving responsibly as
a business is not just the right thing to do;
it makes great business sense.
OUR CR STRATEGY
We aim to harness the roles our hotels
play in society to create shared value for
IHG, our guests and communities wherever
we operate – whether that’s conserving
and protecting resources, building
long-term wealth, creating meaningful
work opportunities or providing shelter
in a storm when disaster strikes.
To achieve our aims, we innovate and
collaborate. We develop ground-breaking
technologies and concepts, like our online
sustainability tool, Green Engage, and our
online Innovation Hotel website. And we
partner with some of the best organisations
around to find new ways to tackle the
challenges we all face. These include
Cornell and Harvard universities, LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) and our new disaster relief
partner, CARE International.
Our stakeholders play a key role in
helping us define and address our
priorities. During the year we increased
stakeholder engagement by continuing to
regularly update our CR report, creating
our ‘IHG Planet CR’ Facebook page and
developing a ‘CR in a Box’ toolkit for our
hotel operators as a quick and easy guide
to enable hotels to do more to support
our CR efforts. We also conducted a
shareholder review to find out what our
investors think of our activities and
launched a new, more interactive version
of our Innovation Hotel. This online
showcase helps us collaboratively
generate ideas for sustainable hotels of
the future by setting out our thinking and
giving guests the chance to share their
ideas. It also now includes real hotel case
studies to show how we put our words
and ideas into action.
GREEN ENGAGE
In 2011 we made further inroads in our
industry-leading approach to designing,
building and operating more sustainable
hotels. We launched version 2.0 of
Green Engage, making it easier to use
and adding more advanced features.
Guests can now make CR decisions for
themselves by booking Green Engage
hotels through IHG websites, telephone
reservations lines and pre-stay emails.
Green Engage helps our hotels track and
reduce their energy, waste and water
consumption, giving them the means to
conserve energy and save money – the
system can help make hotels up to 25 per
cent more energy efficient. Currently, over
1,700 hotels are signed up to the system.
Since rolling out Green Engage, we have
made a demonstrable improvement in
year-on-year energy reduction, as our
Carbon Disclosure Project results show.
Our score increased by 22 points to 76 out
of 100. This reflects the detail we provide
about our governance and strategy to
reduce our environmental impacts.
IHG ACADEMY
Through the innovative IHG Academy,
we join forces with local education
providers to provide real life skills and
create job opportunities in hospitality.
This public-private partnership not only
enhances employment prospects for
local people, it also ensures we have a
pipeline of talent in areas where a skilled
workforce can be hard to find.
The IHG Academy has been a great
success in China, where it was first
launched in 2006. There are currently
36 Academy programmes in numerous
countries and over 5,500 participants took
part in 2011. In 2011, we also expanded the
programme to other territories in which
we operate including our first ever UK
IHG Academy which was opened by
Chief Executive Richard Solomons.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Corporate responsibility (CR) is part of our culture and part of the way we do business. Doing the right
thing creates shared value, reinforces trust in our brands and helps our hotels manage costs, drive
revenue and be prepared for the future. It helps us address social, economic and environmental
challenges – keeping us in tune with our stakeholders and strengthening our corporate reputation. That is
why we put CR at the heart of our Vision to become one of the world’s great companies. More and more
of our guests and corporate clients want to make sustainable choices. Behaving responsibly shows we
are listening to our stakeholders, strengthening our brands and helping to create hotels of the future.