Hilton Worldwide has reduced its waste output by 26.8 percent, energy use by 13.6 percent, carbon output by 20.2 percent and water use by 13.1 percent since 2009, according to the company’s 2013-2014 corporate responsibility report, released today.
The report is Hilton Worldwide’s third corporate responsibility report, and its first since returning to public markets following an initial public offering in December 2013. The report highlights efforts, achievements and priorities across the four focus areas of Hilton Worldwide’s corporate responsibility strategy, Travel with Purpose: creating opportunities, strengthening communities, celebrating cultures and living sustainability.
To help carry out its plan, Hilton created LightStay, a proprietary system to measure, analyze and report on sustainability data. In 2010, LightStay helped the company save more than $74 million across its portfolio of 10 hotel brands.
Other notable achievements highlighted in the report include:
- Achieving ISO 50001 energy management system certification across Hilton Worldwide’s entire portfolio of hotels, making it one of the first multinational organizations to certify its entire system globally.
- Announcing a global “Open Doors” commitment, which aims to impact at least 1 million young people by 2019 by helping them to reach their full potential.
- Launching the Global Youth Wellbeing Index, a tool for governments, businesses and civil society to use to advance youth agendas, funding and programs.
- Training nearly 2,000 managers and department heads on child trafficking awareness and reaching more than 45,000 Team Members through the company’s Code of Conduct training.
- Activating nearly 2,400 global projects and contributing 200,000 volunteer hours during our Global Week of Service.
- Participating in the Carbon Disclosure project.
- Supporting more than 700 hotels with our Living Sustainably environmental awareness campaign.
In last year’s corporate responsibility report, Hilton Worldwide announced it had saved nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from energy efficiency projects over 4 years. In the U.S., Hilton purchased more than 450 million kilowatt hours of renewable power through December 31, 2012 — enough to meet 94 percent of the annual electricity use in its owned hotels in the United States.