Corporate responsibility

Our Carbon Footprint

A key business objective for IHG over the coming years is to minimise our impact on the climate and to ‘future proof’ ourselves against rising energy and carbon costs. We see this as an opportunity to innovate and focus on practical measures we can take to reduce emissions. Our approach is centred on responsible design, construction and operational activities.

Measurement is an essential first step. We commissioned Best Foot Forward to undertake a robust carbon footprint measurement of a representative sample of 26 of our hotels during 2006-2007. The data was extrapolated, taking into consideration brand and region, to give an estimate of the carbon footprint throughout our complete hotel portfolio. The analysis demonstrated that IHG’s carbon footprint is approximately 9 million metric tonnes. Approximately 4.6 million tonnes are emissions from energy usage whilst 4.4 million tonnes are indirect emissions from consumption of other resources, including materials and waste.

We have broken this down into a per room night figure and, since most of our room nights are in the USA, compared this performance against that of our US guests in their own homes. The analysis shows that, at 59kg per night, our average hotel room footprint is approximately equal to the average US home. At the best performing hotels in the study we found our carbon footprint was significantly lower than staying at home and a range of our mid-scale hotels have lower carbon emissions than staying at home.

Our emissions measurement exercise, which we believe is more comprehensive than any other study undertaken in the hotel industry to date, also demonstrated that the environmental aspects of hotel activities such as heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems can be managed to lower our carbon footprint.

Average IHG hotel carbon footprint by percentage
(direct and indirect emissions)

We also found that there are opportunities for improvements in carbon dioxide performance in all brands. To address our carbon challenges, IHG will continue to implement best practice in areas that really drive impact, particularly in hotel design, operations and purchasing through our sustainability tool Green Engage.

We will use Green Engage to track and report on our carbon use across the Group to provide a more accurate picture of the progress we are making to reduce our carbon footprint.