Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2014

98 Sustainable table During the UAE Green Festival, 29 of our Rotana restaurants participated in the festival by offering a sustainable menu to our guests for a whole month. The sustainable menu recipes were sourced from local, organic ingredients including locally sourced yoghurt, Arabian Gulf prawns, locally caught sea bream, organic tagliatelle, Emirati potato puree and local mountain honey. Yas Island Rotana, UAE Organic garden The organic garden was set up on the hotel grounds, managed directly by the chef and his team and supplied the hotel with fresh seasonal produce such as Thai basil, mint, melons, water spinach, cherry tomato, eggplant, tomatoes, and many other cooking and aromatic herbs. This initiative was completely self-driven, with the executive chef and his staff working on non-operational hours, days off and even holidays – advancing and experimenting with new techniques, varieties, and planning menus in such a manner as to use produce directly in the buffet. The hotel received the Best Sustainability Practice Award for oganic garden. Over the past few years, we have become more conscious of the environmental and social impact of the products we select from our suppliers beside our commitment to develop local markets in the countries we operate, through the collaboration with local suppliers and contractors and by purchasing locally produced supplies. We mainly deal with locally registered supplier in the base country. However, due to circumstantial exceptions, approximately 10% of our suppliers are without a local presence and goods are imported directly. In 2014 alone, we spent nearly 206.3 million USD with suppliers. Among the products shifted to locally produced products are dairy products, fruits and vegetables, fishes, eggs, and collaterals printing services and other products. Local Supplies Unit 2012 2013 2014 Payments to locally registered suppliers/ contractors $ 183.4 M 198 M 206.3 M Our targets for 2015 • Develop a sustainable procurement code • Review the seafood products across our hotels and issue a seafood policy • Start screening our suppliers and contractors by a self- assessment questionnaire to assess their environmental, labour, social and human rights practices as well as their compliance with the code • Develop a monitoring and reporting template to measure hotels performance on sustainable procurement, local supplies and products • Substitute two imported products per hotel to locally produced products • Substitute two products per hotel to environmentally friendly products • Identify critically endangered species and substitute with other less endangered species In 2014, we substituted 82 imported products to locally produced products in the country of operation.