In January 2010, Whitbread launched Good Together, an umbrella programme to improve sustainable performance and corporate responsibility.
Customer research tells us that our customers really care about environmental and social issues even in these times of recession. On average, 65% of respondents across all our brands rated the issues as important. We recognise that we are at the start of an exciting journey and our ambition is to lead the hospitality sector in providing our customers with outstanding green products and services, without a significant price premium attached.
Good Together strategy
We have focused our efforts on six important streams of activity, setting targets for achievement and behavioural change in each. These themes were identified by our customers, our teams and from market research as those that are most material to our business. They are: environment; employee engagement; sourcing of products and services; customer engagement; health; and community. Delivering against these six areas is an important part of Whitbread's strategy.
We believe that Good Together is important in making Whitbread a business in which people will want to work, investors will want to invest and customers will be proud to visit and come back to again and again.
Targets
We have set important initial targets as follows:
- Reduce CO2 emissions from our operations by 26% by 2020;
- Achieve 80% of waste diverted from landfill from Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants sites by February 2012;
- 100% of all Costa coffee production to be Rainforest Alliance certified by June 2010;
- Launch a purpose-built 'green hotel and restaurant' at Burgess Hill, West Sussex (to open in autumn 2010) - as shown in the diagram above;
- Achieve 3,000 qualifications from the Hotels and Restaurants apprenticeship scheme and train four hundred Costa learners by the end of 2011;
- Raise £1 million for WaterAid over two years; and
- Enable 15,000 children to be educated as part of the Costa Foundation.
An integrated programme
We are working to embed sustainability into everything we do to build even stronger brands, inspire and motivate our team members, delight our customers and ultimately make our business better prepared to deliver continued value to our shareholders. We know that, in an international organisation of over 33,000 people, this is a cultural and behavioural transition that will take time, but we have already taken some important steps forward.
Communication and engagement
In October 2009, we started to communicate Good Together. Key elements of our communications plan included newsletters, intranet micro-site, line managers' support packs and a Good Together launch week of activity during which team members made personal pledges.
Driving and measuring performance
We have included a fourth stakeholder, called Good Together, on the WINcard. Now we measure and reward our people based partly on our success in reducing energy consumption.
WaterAid partnership
For team members one of the key motivators is their desire to raise money for both local and national charities. As a hospitality business we use a lot of water. We wanted to give back to those communities that go without the most basic requirements of life - safe water and sanitation. In June 2009 we joined forces with globally recognised charity, WaterAid.
Costa Foundation
In 2006, we launched the Costa Foundation. This was the beginning of our journey in helping the coffee-growers by raising money to build schools in their communities.
Developing carbon and water efficient buildings
We will deliver carbon efficiency by incorporating retrofit measures across our estate and by opening new sustainable properties. In 2008, we built our first carbon and water efficient Premier Inn at Tamworth, which achieved an 86% reduction in carbon emissions and a 66% reduction in water usage versus a standard hotel of a similar size. We are now building a carbon and water-efficient hotel and restaurant in Burgess Hill which we will open in autumn 2010.
Achieving the Carbon Trust Standard
In December 2009 we were awarded the Carbon Trust Standard. This award requires organisations to measure, manage and reduce their carbon footprint and make reductions year on year. Between 2007 and 2009 Whitbread achieved a 4% improvement in carbon efficiency, which is equivalent to saving 8,562 tonnes of CO2, or taking 2,446 cars off the road.
Further information can be found in our Good Together report.
