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New Initiatives of IHG Hotels to Reduce Plastic Waste
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) regularly updates its policies in order to become more environment-friendly. According to the new initiative, the hotel chain will stop offering one-time use bath amenities in its 843,000 guest rooms worldwide. The company will offer bulk-size amenities instead in order to reduce plastic waste.
Naturally, changing amenities in all hotels is not a fast process. IHG plans to end it in 2021. After that, IHG hotels in London, Bangkok, Paris, and other cities will have no bathroom miniatures. The hotelier will be the first hospitality company to do this. Changing amenities is all 5,600 hotels is a huge step forward that will help our planet and motivate other companies to change. Around one-third of IHG’s estates have already adopted the new practice.
At its current level of development, the hotelier uses roughly 200 million bathroom miniatures every year. The company has been taking steps to reduce its plastic waste in recent years. These innovations concern different aspects of the hotels’ operation. For example, IHG plans to remove plastic straws from all hotels of the chain by the end of 2019. IHG is also a part of Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy 100 network and follows FTSE4Good Index in order to become more sustainable. The company understands that achieving circular economy is not a simple task, but this has to be done to help our environment.
IHG did a series of tests about bulk-size amenities in bathrooms. Hotel guests were positive about the change as modern travelers want to be more sustainable without compromising on the quality of their hotel stay. For example, the Six Senses Hotels Resorts and Spas brand already offers bath amenities in refillable ceramic dispensers. Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants started offering amenities in large size. More than 1,000 Holiday Inn Express hotels in the Americas have already joined the new initiative. Such hotel brands as avid™, voco™ Hotels, and EVEN® Hotels have offered bathroom amenities in a large size since their launch. They work with suppliers in order to offer quality dispensers that have a luxurious feel.
IHG decided to remove single-use plastic straws from its hotels around the world in autumn 2018. This is a steady process, and the hotelier removes around 50 million plastic straws every year. Moreover, voco Hotels offer pillows and duvets with 100% recycled filling.
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