Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017

33 We look at sustainability in terms of shared global needs and the future of our business. Knowing what is important to Rotana and our stakeholders is essential for enabling us to focus our resources on those areas that will have the most significant sustainability impact. Health and safety, ethics and integrity, environmental impact, and compliance are examples of topics that are relevant to both our business direction and our sustainability efforts. As the population grows, particularly in emerging economies, challenges like energy availability and security, raw material scarcity, human health and safety, education, and employment also grow. For this reason, our materiality assessment is a vital component of our sustainability strategy and reporting. By understanding the critical issues from both internal and external stakeholder perspectives, we can strengthen our ability to develop and action corporate strategy, goals, targets, programmes and initiatives to advance sustainability globally. Data provided in our sustainability report includes information on issues that were found through our materiality assessment to have the highest potential to impact on our business success and that are of great importance to our internal and external stakeholders. Because we are a diversified company, several other environmentally-related topics and performance indicators relevant to various sectors of the company are also included in the report. OUR MATERIAL TOPICS The focus of our sustainability strategy and this report is on 20 material sustainability topics facing our business. We reviewed our material topics in 2016 using input from internal and external stakeholders, including: our guest satisfaction survey, our annual supplier satisfaction survey, our annual colleague satisfaction survey, and research of our peers and the hospitality sector more broadly. Our CSC committee developed surveys to obtain feedback from Rotana’s General Managers and Corporate Vice Presidents on the relative importance of different sustainability topics. We have shared the findings of our materiality analysis on the matrix below, which reflects our understanding of the significance of each topic in terms of stakeholder interest and potential business impact. The materiality matrix shows the relative priority of the 12 high and 8 medium impact financial and non-financial topics that were identified as being of concern or priority for our internal and external stakeholders. The topics relate to six focus areas – our colleagues, our governance, our guests, our communities, our environment and our suppliers. In 2017, there were no significant changes in material topics and boundaries from previous years. Materiality Assessment Low Medium High Sustainability Materiality Matrix Impact on Business Success Importance to Stakeholders • Water • Energy • Guest Engagement • Health, Safety and Security • Local Employment • Waste and Materials • Local Supplies • Biodiversity • Responsible Transport • Sustainable Sourcing • Diversity and Equal Opportunity • Green Building Design • Responsible Communication • Effluent and Waste • Learning and Development • Materials Consumption • Education and Awareness • Ethics and Integrity • Economic Performance