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Accor to cut food waste by 30%

Hotel group Accor has committed to cut food waste by 30% and introduce a “charter on sustainable food” in every one of its restaurants. The owners of the Novotel, Ibis and Sofitel chains also unveiled plans to create 1,000 urban vegetable gardens in its hotels.

Food and drink will be a major priority between now and 2020, noted CEO Sébastien Bazin. “As we serve 200 million meals a year, we will be focusing particularly on offering healthy and responsible dishes, and on stemming food waste in our restaurants.”

However, it’s not clear whether the group will be serving up less meat in its restaurants – an idea first mooted when Planet 21 was being developed. In an interview with Footprint at the time, the company’s sustainability lead admitted that encouraging people to turn off the taps and re-use towels is one thing, asking them to eat fewer sausages for breakfast is quite another.

The new commitments on food waste and procurement came as the group published the results of its progress from 2011 to 2015.

A number of the Planet 21 targets have been met, including those relating to recycling, renewable energy and the procurement of locally-sourced products. On equality the group continues to struggle, with a target for 35% of hotels to have female hotel managers showing little sign of improvement in the past five years (28%).

This year, a calculator will be added to the AccorHotels app to tell guests about their stay’s environmental and economic impact (water consumption, carbon emissions, jobs created or supported). This follows a survey of 7,000 guests showing that two out of three are willing to pay a little more to stay at a hotel that is acting responsibly.