With the energy impact of 386,000 Europeans, the Accor hotel group’s footprint is sizeable

Accor Group’s Environmental Footprint Report bills itself as an industry first because it sets out to assess the hotel chain’s full environmental footprint. The report builds on two years of research and life-cycle analysis by Accor and PricewaterhouseCoopers and the results are impressive and often surprising.   

After a short introduction, the report provides a brief outline of the methodology used by Accor and PwC. This is followed by an overview of the top-line results across five impact areas: energy consumption, water consumption, waste production, greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. They provide an eye-opening insight into the wider footprint of the hotel industry: 86% of the group’s water footprint occurs in its food and drinks supply chain, as does 94% of its water pollution footprint. Direct water use on the company's sites, conversely, accounts for only 11% of its water footprint and 4% of its water pollution. Of its waste footprint, 68% comes from hotel construction and renovation.

As Accor acknowledges, the findings shed light on several impacts that people rarely associate with hotel operations and its report goes on to explore the findings in more detail for three broad areas: energy and carbon emissions, food and drink purchases and waste from buildings.

This further analysis contains some interesting facts. For example, although meat only accounts for 3% by weight of the group’s food and drinks purchases, it accounts for 27% of its food and drinks carbon footprint, 16% of its water footprint and 42% of its water pollution footprint. So if a guest wants to save water should he or she worry less about reusing a towel and more about choosing the vegetarian option for dinner?  

The information is presented clearly and is accessible to a non-technical audience. As a result, the report talks in broad strokes when at times it would benefit from more detail. Water impacts, for example, are by their nature local, and it would be helpful to see a regional breakdown of the group’s water footprint mapped against areas identified as water-stressed.

The report ends with some external commentary from two life-cycle analysis experts and a sustainable tourism expert who discuss their impressions of the research and its findings. Some more challenging feedback would give their views added credibility.   

How good or bad?

More context would help throughout, as it is often difficult to understand what the findings really mean in practice. To try to do this, Accor compares its own footprint to that of an “average European”. For example, at 18.2TWh, its energy consumption is equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 386,000 Europeans. Its water footprint is equivalent to use by 438,000 Europeans. While these benchmarks help to show scale, they don’t indicate whether this is an acceptable level of performance given the size and nature of the company. If these results aren’t as good as they should be, what is Accor aiming for?

To be fair, mapping out the next steps falls outside the scope of this report. Instead, it is very much an analysis of where the company is at this moment. It does, however, outline some of the challenges Accor must overcome if it is to significantly reduce its environmental footprint. Apart from energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, most indicators point to its supply chain as the biggest contributor; any headway here will require a huge effort on the part of Accor.

The company points to some initiatives it is taking to tackle this, such as developing “more balanced and smarter menus” to cut down on its food and drinks footprint. However, frustratingly it doesn’t take the next step to explain what it means by this. To make meaningful progress it will have to be far more ambitious; recognition of this is missing. Accor also needs to bring us along with its story by explaining some of its findings and conclusions in more detail.

While Accor doesn’t commit itself to any new targets, it says it will use the findings to develop its sustainable development programme and is preparing a new action plan looking towards 2015. It would be good to see some of the ambition and transparency the company has disclosed in this report reflected in its new strategy. It will be fascinating to see how it puts these findings into action.    

Tom Branczik is a senior consultant at sustainability strategy and communications consultancy Context.

Snapshot

Follows GRI? No.

Assured? No, although research conducted in partnership with GRI.

Materiality analysis? No.

Goals? No.

Targets? No.

Stakeholder input? Yes.

Seeks feedback? No.

Key strengths? Clearly presented, accessible and interesting analysis. 

Chief weakness? More detail and context needed to put the results in perspective.

Pleasant surprise? Methodology is available on request, on condition that companies that use it must publish their findings.