BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE HOTEL PORTFOLIO BY ALEPH HOSPITALITY

World Travel & Tourism Council November 12 2024 – In 2023 Aleph Hospitality, the leading independent hotel management company in the Middle East and Africa, initiated a partnership with World Travel & Tourism Council for sustainability verification of the hotels in our portfolio. We have chosen WTTC, as their approach is partner driven instead of audit based, which will allow our hotels, when they are ready, to become verified within Hotel Sustainability Basics. We are not just looking for a badge of approval but see this as a great opportunity to contribute to a global organisation with criteria for people, planet and efficiency. This partnership gives us access to resources and best practices, helping us to step up our future game to become more impactful. One of our hotels has already passed Hotel Sustainability Basics, while the remainder have either submitted or are lined up to start the verification process.

Aleph Cares

The WTTC partnership is a component of Aleph Cares, our comprehensive sustainability programme. In this context, CARES stands for Community, Aleph, Responsible, Environment and Sustainability. The programme is based on five pillars: management approach, energy & water consumption, waste management, product selection and CSR & solidarity.

Driving the development of Aleph Cares is our sincere belief that we all have a responsibility to take care of our planet and people, and there are so many processes in hotels which can be vastly improved in regard to sustainability.

Is it a challenge to implement a corporate ESG strategy in a portfolio of hotels which are both dissimilar in character and in location? Absolutely. What works for one hotel or location doesn’t necessarily work for another. Lack of knowledge at the individual hotels is also a potential stumbling block. As for reporting, the traditional checklist approach often stifles or confuses the local hotel teams, with the risk of local efforts grinding to a halt.

For an umbrella ESG strategy to succeed and thrive in a diverse, global hotel portfolio, we have identified these best practices:

Focus on building an internal culture which is self-driven by passion and knowledge, rather than imposing corporate control
Have a realistic approach to local efforts, allowing ESG efforts to evolve organically
Replace structured reporting with shared experiences and storytelling
Building an internal culture self-driven by passion and knowledge

We have found that the principle for success is to engage team members to take ownership. We ask each hotel to appoint a Pioneer who is inherently passionate about environmental, social, and corporate governance, and who is committed to raising awareness of these issues. Taking on this responsibility, each pioneer researches and initiates viable solutions at their respective hotel, working closely with the local team to develop and implement best practices. The results have been astounding, to the point that some hotels now have not just a single pioneer but what they themselves have proudly termed: a sustainability army.

From the corporate side, we teach the hotel teams about environmental issues, diversity and inclusion in the workforce, human rights, energy and water conservation, waste management, eco-friendly product selection, community work and much more. Every new team member at every hotel gets an induction into our ESG programme as a foundation for awareness and understanding.

Armed with knowledge, the pioneers drive the initiatives independently at their hotels, with corporate functioning essentially as a support system only. It has been astonishing to see how these pioneers flourish and take ownership, spurred on by a personal passion as well as pride in seeing their initiatives succeed at their hotel.

Localising the ESG strategy

As mentioned earlier, a corporate ESG strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. We focus on localising the strategy at each hotel, inviting the pioneers and hotel teams to bring forward their own ideas. Ideas that fit the hotel because they stem from an in-depth understanding of opportunities and limitations in their community and country.

Shared experiences & storytelling instead of reporting

We have replaced structured reporting and checklists with shared experiences and storytelling. Our quarterly calls, attended by pioneers and general managers, are seen as an important part of hotel operations. Having created a common language around ESG, all the hotels share ideas and experiences with each other. We talk about what you CAN do as opposed to dictating standards which could be unattainable under certain circumstances.

Our experience with WTTC Hotel Sustainability Basics

We looked at a number of organisations before deciding to partner with WTTC. We found that the Hotel Sustainability Basics framework allowed our hotels to be recognised for some of the great initiatives already implemented, while identifying local and global areas of future priority.

As the basics programme requires eight criteria to be completed in the first year and a further four in the coming years, this has provided a real focus for future efforts for our hotels. The WTTC programme delivers a structure which enables our hotel teams to take their sustainability efforts to the next level. For example, single use plastics are very common in African but following the introduction of the WTTC programme, all our hotels are now researching alternative solutions within a set timeframe.

While our hotels have already built a solid ESG culture over the past three years, the partnership with WTTC has allowed us to escalate our efforts across our hotel portfolio with heightened global awareness. We can see that the hotel teams thrive under the programme, and we know that guests will appreciate staying at hotels which can demonstrate a genuine care for our people and planet.

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE HOTEL PORTFOLIO BY ALEPH HOSPITALITY

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