Water

• Implement tools to reduce the water footprint of our hotels
• Mitigate water risk through stakeholder collaboration to deliver water stewardship at basin level
• Collaborate to ensure adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions for our operating communities

With demand for water exceeding supply in many parts of the world, it’s important we play our part in preserving this precious resource, so we’re incorporating water efficiency measures into both our existing hotel operations and new properties.

With the impact of climate change, water stress is becoming a reality. Extreme weather and droughts are occurring more frequently throughout the world and it is important that we understand which of our hotels are located in areas of high water stress or drought risk. This will help us adapt to better support these properties, mitigate risk and reduce consumption.

We have used the World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas tool to map water risk across all of our hotel locations to create a baseline data set. We report this data in line with the SASB framework (see page 58 in the Appendix of Our Responsible Business Report), which indicates the amount of water our existing hotels are consuming in areas of extreme and high water scarcity. This data and overall water risk assessment, which considers indicators such as flooding, drought and water depletion, was used to inform our water stewardship pilot projects.

For more information see pages 37-38 of our Responsible Business Report.

We hope to drive water efficiency through the water reduction measures that we have integrated into our brand standards globally, which mandate existing hotels to implement high-efficiency, low-flow aerated shower heads and taps by the end of 2025. On average, theses steps reduce water consumption by 11 litres per minute and three litres per minute respectively (this can vary according to hotel). We track our performance through our environmental data management platform, Green Engage, where hotels are required to regularly submit their water consumption data.