Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017

Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017 64 Population growth has resulted in an increase in the amount of waste generated, and with landfill space diminishing, the incentives for better waste management solutions have increased. This is a challenge faced by many of our markets, as inadequate waste management practices can be a concern to the environment and health of the community. Our hotels also proactively manage increasing regulation imposed by local governments in response to these waste issues. The nature of our operations produces waste that needs to be effectively managed. It is important that we reduce and manage the waste that we produce, encouraging the concepts of avoiding, reducing and recycling throughout the hotel operations. In 2014, we developed 4 waste management programmes to better monitor and manage our waste. These include a waste management programme, hazardous waste management programme, food waste management programme, and green office programme. The programmes are rolled out at all Rotana properties. The progress outside the UAE is slower owing to the lack of recyclables collection companies in certain countries of operation nevertheless continuous efforts are taken to reduce general waste generation. In 2016, our operations generated a total of 10,839 tonnes of general waste, with waste intensity decreasing by 18% from 2012. As we progress towards the integration of sustainability throughout our operations, we now have a better understanding of the context and challenges that we face. Our initial ambition was to reduce waste intensity (kg/guest) by 25%, with our waste metrics showing dry waste, decreasing to around 18% from 2012 but recyclable waste intensity (kg/guest night) increasing to 7% only from the 2013 baseline and 10% for total tonnes of segregated recyclables. As of end of 2016, we have achieved the following results: We are fundamentally committed to improving our efforts, but are often constrained by a lack of public awareness, country-wide infrastructure for reducing waste and the lack of recycling facilities at some of our locations. We will continue to investigate our waste issues and understand how we can implement effective solutions. Moving forward, we know that lot of effort has already been invested: • To increase the recyclables waste segregation from different departmental operations in our hotels. • To improve our waste monitoring methodologies to be more consistent and to ensure that data is robust and comparable across the hotels. • To consider procurement decisions on waste product life- cycle including packaging parameters of new products. Waste • We reduced our general waste disposal to landfill (kg/guest) by 19.5% (vs. 2012 baseline). A drop from 2.35 kg/guest to 1.87 kgs. • We increased our waste recycling and segregation (kg/guest) by 7.10% (vs. 2013 baseline). 2016 2017 Total general waste generated tonnes 9,707 10,978 Total waste recycled tonnes 790 1,032 Waste intensity kg/guest night 1.83 1.87 CHOOSE TO REUSE Annually our hotels generate many tonnes of discarded linen and bed sheets. In 2016, a programme was developed in collaboration with Ecolab, our chemical provider: “Choose to Reuse” aims to collect discarded linen from our operations in the UAE and donate it to Dar el Ber Society benefiting refugees and people in need. The collection is also sustainable as the Ecolab territory manager collects the linen while performing their regular servicing in order to minimise the carbon footprint. The first collection was 125 kgs of linen collected from UAE hotels and donated to the charitable organisation.