Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (MOHG) has extended its window to achieve a goal of eliminating all single-use plastics (SUP) across its portfolio of luxury hotels by 12 months, citing the impact of the pandemic on reaching its initial goal of the end of March 2021.
Three months on from that deadline (proposed in October 2019), the Group has made significant progress towards meeting the goal, despite ongoing challenges. By the end of Q1 2021, the Group had achieved nearly 70% reduction in this annual plastic footprint. Based on estimated plastic stock depletion timelines and supplier delivery commitments, it is expected that all hotels will eliminate SUP by the end of Q1 2022, avoiding 930 tonnes of plastic waste each year.
The principal reason for the Group not hitting the target date is the delay in usage of existing SUP supplies due to the low business levels caused by the pandemic.
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The Group has been committed to eliminating SUP across all areas of its hotels, including rooms, spa, transport, restaurants and bars as well as in back-of-house areas not seen by guests, such as offices, colleague areas and kitchens. To help colleagues work through their efforts to eliminate SUP, the most common SUP items were identified across the three main operational departments: Food&Beverage, Spa and Rooms. Of these, six high-impact items accounted for 81% of annual SUP waste generated:
