Management method
Internal organization of sustainable development
In order to support in-house projects and monitor their results, Accor has a Sustainable Development Department with six full-time employees reporting directly to the Executive Committee. The Sustainable Development Department works at two levels: first, it initiates projects for the Group and, second, it assists operations and support services (HR, Purchasing, Technology, Design, Marketing, and Quality) in the implementation of sustainable development.
The Sustainable Development Department relies on an extended network of about one hundred agents worldwide. These agents facilitate the integration of sustainable development into the Group’s daily operations. They communicate good local practices and proposals for projects. Finally, this network guarantees the consistency of the Group's policy in all its activities.
Management tools
The Group has developed several tools to implement its sustainable development policy. The most important are:
The Hotel Environment Charter
Launched in 1998 for all Group hotels, this Charter today contains 65 environmental measures recommended by Accor. It is a road map, both a communication and a reporting tool:
- First, it provides the hotels with a series of relevant environmental measures that make an impact and can be performed at the level of each hotel.
- Second, it can be displayed for visitors to inform them of the measures taken by the hotel (provided that at least 20 out of the 65 proposed measures, including five mandatory, are being performed).
- Third, the list of actions set up by the hotel is recorded on the OPEN tool (see below), so that the Group has an overall and accurate vision of the measures taken in its hotels.
The Offices Environment Charter
A second version of the Environment Charter was introduced in 2008, with 60 specific actions to respond to office issues, to allow the Group employees who do not work in hotels to get more easily committed.
The OPEN tool
OPEN is an internal management tool that was released in 2005 and is accessible to all hotel managers through the Group's Intranet. It currently contains five applications allowing each hotel to:
- Steer the implementation of the Hotel Environment Charter;
- Track changes in its energy consumption;
- Tracks changes in its water consumption;
- Measure the laundry savings achieved by the hotel thanks to the Plant for the Planet project;
- Manager waste production in terms of cost and volume.
OPEN is used by hotel managers to steer their environmental program and to monitor changes in their consumption items. It is also used by the Sustainable development Department, the operational managers and technical departments to obtain an overall and accurate vision of the environmental performance of each zone.
The Environmental Reporting Protocol
In 2008, Accor implemented an Environmental Reporting Protocol in order to clarify and improve the organization of the environmental information’s consolidation. This protocol presents Accor environmental indicators, their calculation and the organization set up to consolidate. The document is downloadable.
Environmental data external audit
Accor initiated in 2007 a process of external verification of its environmental data in order to improve its reporting quality.
First this verification concerned the Hotels Environment Charter monitoring, and notably led to the integration of a sustainable development component in the Group’s quality audits.
In 2010 this analysis, performed by Ernst & Young, focused on the water and energy consumption data, as well as on greenhouse gas emissions. Ernst & Young certified a moderate level of assurance.
- See the Ernst & Young’s assurance report (378k) (French only, English version soon)
ACT-HIV initiative
At the end of 2007, the Group launched an international program to fight HIV/AIDS. Intended for hotel managers, this program relies on ACT-HIV, a DVD explaining the six steps to conduct a program to fight the disease:
- Collaborate with identified local partners (associations, NGOs, international organizations), and occupational medicine (when available),
- Unite and motivate employees,
- Provide information to understand the disease better,
- Prevent, increase awareness, and offer condoms and screening,
- Assist and promote access to medical care and treatment,
- Consolidate by sharing good practices.
This process is adapted to each situation, depending on whether the country is engaged in a prevention program.
