Mandarin Oriental’s sustainability chief shares eco predictions
Luxury travel agents will focus on being part of sustainable supply chains, with brands working together to “become a real force for good”, Mandarin Oriental’s group director of sustainability has predicted.
Torsten van Dullemen is general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, the group’s area vice president of operations, and also became group director of sustainability in April.
He said Mandarin Oriental already seeks out suppliers who offer the most sustainable options, explaining: “Not only are we promoting and helping those who actually care as much as we do about sustainability, but we’re also pushing this responsibility further down the supply chain. We’re not going to accept everything being wrapped in single-use plastic, because we are part of this process and we have an opportunity to extend our influence.”
He predicted luxury agents will become even more particular about the brands they work with, either by personal choice or because clients demand it. He explained: “I can see the agents, booking platforms and consortia we work with are getting more and more concerned about sustainability and are starting to gravitate towards other people in the travel world who are like-minded.
“I think it’s important that you’re picky about who you do business with. While the majority of effort we will expend [on sustainability] will be within our own four walls, I think we can also make an effort with the supply chain on either side, to try and push sustainability as far down the supply line as we can, so it becomes something that becomes a real force for good.”
He said consumers now look to make sustainable choices across all aspects of their life. “It is becoming a lifestyle for a lot of people, as they have a shared concern and I believe that directly or indirectly, it features in somebody’s decision making when they buy something, whether that’s food or cleaning products, or where they travel and who they stay with.”
GREEN GOALS
Van Dullemen said the brand is “very close” to being 99% single-use plastic-free in all of its properties, with “amazing strides’’ made in responsible agricultural procurement of products such as coffee, cacao and vanilla, and in avoiding all endangered species from menus, including fish and shellfish. He said Mandarin Oriental also had “very strong targets” for energy management, and waste management is one of his priorities for 2023.
A pilot project this year saw staff across six hotels offered a paid day off to work for a charity of their choice, which is due to be rolled out across the brand’s 12,000 global colleagues. “Take-up was amazing,” van Dullemen added.
He said new-build hotels are now designed to be “as sustainable as possible”, citing the brand’s first hotel in Greece, The Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino, which is set to open in spring 2023.
“We’re making sure that sustainability is at the forefront of our minds in the way we build properties, the way we will deliver the service, and to minimise the negative impact something like that can have, but also to see what we can do to help develop the area in a very, very positive way,” he added.
He said when he speaks to guests they are “full of praise, very pleased and very appreciative” of the brand’s sustainability efforts. However he stressed that Mandarin Oriental deliberately avoided heavily promoting its green credentials, acknowledging: “We must not be hypocritical about it. We will never be a sustainable industry. The majority of our guests fly to us, many on private planes.
“There’s a fine line between turning it into a marketing message, which we don’t want to do, and actually ensuring that through our brands we promote the importance of sustainability. First and foremost we do it because it’s the right thing to do. And it’s a sustainable way of operating a business.”
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