Home Energy Management Melia Hotels Pursues Funding to Boost Decarbonization Strategy

Melia Hotels Pursues Funding to Boost Decarbonization Strategy

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Glenn Hasek

The government of Spain recently announced a public process to identify projects to which to allocate European Recovery Funds. Meliá Hotels International, one of the world’s largest international hotel groups, revealed the third of the projects it has submitted to the government’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. The project aims to help combat climate change and push forward the decarbonization of the hotel industry.

Specifically, the project presented to the Ministry aims to accelerate the transformation of hotel management (and its entire value chain) towards a more sustainable and responsible business model, something in which Meliá has been working with a strategic focus for more than a decade, integrating environmental, social, and good governance (ESG) criteria into its business DNA.

With a proposed investment of almost $156.6 million, the company hopes to give a definitive boost to its decarbonization strategy and reduce its scope 1 and scope 2 environmental footprint to zero while also reducing scope 3 emissions, with digitalization and innovation being the key drivers of the change.

Project’s Five Key Areas

The project revolves around five key areas: reducing its carbon footprint, promoting a circular economy, reinforcing a sustainable management model, developing an environmental management and control system, and designing an impact measurement model.

Among other initiatives aimed at achieving carbon neutrality, projects also include the creation of a prototype for a sustainable hotel that will define the hotel industry of the future. To this end, Meliá is committed to transforming one of its hotels in the iconic Biosphere Reserve of Menorca, while also helping boost the island’s positioning as a sustainable travel destination.

At present, almost 60 percent of the electrical energy consumed by Meliá hotels worldwide is renewable energy, with the figure rising to 100 percent in Spain. In addition, the company has already reduced its CO2 emissions by more than 15 percent. In 2020, Meliá was named by the Wall Street Journal the seventh best company in the world in sustainable management and has extensive experience in developing sustainability projects. In recent years it has integrated sustainable criteria into its hotel design and construction model, it has certified its environmental management model, implemented new technologies in the measurement of waste and in the management and control of consumption, among other projects.

As Gabriel Escarrer, Executive Vice President and CEO of Meliá, explains, “We do not aspire to be among the largest companies in the world, but we do aspire to being a good company for the world, and that means we have to manage the resources within our reach in a sustainable way, guaranteeing a balance between our growth, environmental protection and social welfare.”

All the best to Meliá Hotels International as it pursues the available government funds. Obtained, the funds will put the hotel company in an even better position to show the rest of the industry how sustainable building and operations can be done.

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