Meliá Hotels International Assumes COP21 Commitments And Will Reduce Emissions By More Than 50% By 2035
With the New York Climate Summit under way, Meliá further strengthens its leadership in combating climate change in the hotel industry by adopting Science-Based targets to help keep global warming to below 2ºC
In the first half of 2019, Meliá Hotels International has had its emission reduction objectives scientifically validated by the Science-Based Target initiative (SBTi), a global alliance driving actions to combat climate change in the business world.
In the first half of 2019, Meliá Hotels International has had its emission reduction objectives scientifically validated by the Science-Based Target initiative (SBTi), a global alliance driving actions to combat climate change in the business world.
The hotel company has committed to reducing emissions in scope 1 and 2 (emissions generated by its own activity) by 13% up to 2023 and by 51% by 2035, with 2018 as the base year. The company also undertakes to reduce scope 3 emissions (indirect) by 6% up to 2023 and 21% by 2035.
Meliá thus aligns its objectives with the commitments made at the United Nations Framework Convention, which resulted in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the main objective of which is to prevent the increase in average global temperatures from rising by more than 2ºC.
SBTi is a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the United Nations Global Compact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the World Resources Institute (WRI), to encourage more ambitious emission reduction objectives among businesses and ensure the transition to a low-carbon economy.
To achieve its objectives, Meliá is working on a range of different projects. One of them, the CO2perate project, is helping optimise energy management, consumption and monitoring in key installations in over a hundred hotels. The company estimates that the reduction over five years will be 130,500 MWh and 66,000 tons of CO2, the equivalent to planting 3, 300 million trees.
The hotel company has also been focused on acquiring certified renewable energy since 2014. In countries such as Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, it has already managed to source 100% of all needs from certified renewable sources.
Other important areas of work include the prioritisation of energy-efficiency criteria in service procurement and subcontracting, the promotion of an environmentally responsible supply chain, the measurement of waste and the elimination of single-use plastics.
STBi certification was an acknowledgement of Meliá's commitment to the development of a sustainable economy and combating climate change, joining other milestones such as the achievement of Silver Class rating in the Sustainability Yearbook 2019 published by the sustainable investment agency RobecoSAM after an evaluation that ranks companies in all industries and worldwide for their performance in sustainability.