Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017

Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017 82 MATERIALS CONSUMPTION The hospitality business involves usage of perishable products like grocery, meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, fruits, milk and milk products, which make up a large extent of materials used. More than 70% of the total material consumption is attributed to these perishable products. Such products have a low-shelf life and hence have to be stored at optimum levels in order to reduce wastage. In our hotels we consume a significant amount of paper, printer cartridges, check-out folios, guest folios, beside rooms’ amenities, key cards, laundry bags, slippers, housekeeping products, and laundry and stewarding products that involve usage of solid and liquid chemicals. We realise the potential environmental impacts of our material footprint and have deployed initiatives to measure, monitor and optimise consumption. Forestry that is managed poorly has catastrophic environmental and socio-economic impacts. Uncontrolled deforestation in the paper and timber industry supply chain is a significant global issue. To reduce our use of paper and paper products, we currently have forms placed on our portal to be completed online to avoid printing and we are continuously focusing on identifying administrative and control processes to redesign and enhance our efficiency with the development of technology e-procedures implementation to significantly reduce paper use. We have started to measure the paper we utilise for printing, copying, offices, collateral we buy and to review how we can ensure that our operational needs are not met at the expense of exploiting the world’s finite and high-conservation value forest resources. In line with our Green Office Programme, all of our UAE hotels have shifted to A4 office paper made from post-consumer recycled materials. USED FRYING OIL In 2015, a corporate agreement with Lootah Biofuels was signed for the collection of used frying oil from all our hotel properties in the UAE. The company produces biodiesel from used cooking oil in the most efficient and sustainable way to deliver economic value and environmental benefit. All our restaurants in the UAE and outside the UAE (wherever oil recycling companies are available) have participated in the used cooking oil recycling programme by providing it to local vendors, hence diverting waste cooking oil from landfill and preventing harmful liquid waste from contaminating local groundwater supplies. Canon Smart printing solution In 2016, Rotana has received the Canon CSR award for adopting the smart printing solution in all our UAE hotels. Glass jars Our guest room mini bar items are placed in glass jars. Annually, over 200,000 glass jars (approx. 2,000 kg of glass) are delivered to our hotels. In 2016, the contract was renewed by adding mandatory re-collection of empty glass jars from UAE hotels for reuse by the supplier. We are expecting to reuse 70% of the glass jars. 100% of A4 paper used in UAE hotels are totally made from recycled materials (81% of group A4 consumption). Certified sustainable paper will be gradually used in all our hotels outside UAE. In 2016 and 2017, we converted 190,000 litres of our kitchen used frying oil to biodiesel Up until the end of 2017, 637 on-site audits of FandB suppliers had been conducted in the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, KSA, Lebanon and Oman for compliance against Rotana’s quality and safety standards. 31 suppliers were rejected and removed from our approved suppliers list for noncompliance with our requirements.