ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY GETS PRIME STATUS IN NEW RADISSON SAS 'RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS' PROGRAMME

Environmental activities are being brought to the forefront in a new Responsible Business programme being drafted by the award-winning Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts chain, which currently operates eight properties throughout the Middle/Near East and North Africa with a further three Egyptian projects due on line soon.

"Our in-house 24-point environmental programme is being incorporated into the new Responsible Business programme, a programme aimed at addressing sustainable development within the tourism sector," said Pia Heidenmark, Director, Environmental & Social Affairs, Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts. "Overall this entails taking responsibility for environmental and social issues while promoting economic prosperity. The hotel industry undeniably has an impact on the environment and society, and, being a tourism-related company, we need both resources to operate."

The new Radisson SAS Responsible Business (RB) programme takes a three-pronged approach covering environmental, social and economic performance. It will address a wide audience of stakeholders, including government, environment suppliers and business partners as well as local and international communities.

"In all, we are addressing seven stakeholder groups with this programme through which we aim to: show responsibility for the health and safety of employees and customers; demonstrate responsibility for social and ethical issues at company, local and global community levels and reduce our impact on the natural environment," said Heidenmark.

The RB programme aims to address the specific needs of each stakeholder. "To be able to succeed with this very ambitious programme, measuring and monitoring is extremely important," explained Heidenmark. "Equally important is to actually show improvements."

All hotels in the group, including the eight in the Middle/Near East and North Africa, will appoint a RB co-ordinator.

"While each hotel will be required to provide performance-related data covering a list of Responsible Business objectives, each hotel will be able to select their own RB focus area, with action plans and targets," said Heidenmark. "In this way, the programme will be harmonised across all hotels, while being flexible enough to take into account local and regional differences and focus areas. This is important for a company operating in 38 countries!"

Eco initiatives have recently been prioritised within Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, most noticeably with the recent appointment of Heidenmark, an MSc graduate in environmental studies, as the group's first Director of Environmental & Social Affairs.


"As a group, Radisson SAS has achieved a great deal in environmental management since the 1994 launch of its proprietary 24-point environmental manual," said Heidenmark. "The Brussels property has won an international environmental award and other group properties have been on the receiving end of regional honours and recognitions. On a corporate level the group has worked with several international non-governmental organisations, for instance, partnering with UNESCO to restore cultural heritage sites."

Radisson SAS has, to date, donated US $136,000 for various UNESCO conservation projects including the Altar in Petra's Qasr El Byint Temple in Jordan, the Bahla Fort in Oman and Tyre in Lebanon.

"The most important environmental areas for a hotel to have control over are energy, water, waste and chemicals," explained Heidenmark. "Although hotels operate in the service sector and do not produce traditional products, they are huge consumers of many different products and therefore consumers of valuable resources. The provision of guidelines on how and what to buy is therefore also very important."

In the Middle/Near East and North Africa, Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts currently operates properties in: Amman, Aqaba, Baku, Istanbul, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat and Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts currently includes 110 hotels in operation and 30 hotels under development in 38 countries and is the sole franchisor in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa for Radisson Hotels & Resorts.

Radisson Hotels & Resorts and its parent company Carlson Hospitality Worldwide includes 750 hotel and resort locations representing 130,658 guest rooms in 63 countries plus six luxury cruise ships sailing worldwide.