Marriott Hotels International is aiming to cut food waste by 50 percent at its properties by 2025, said Denise Naguib, vice president of sustainability and supplier diversity for the hotel giant, at Bloomberg’s second annual The Year Ahead: Luxury summit on Thursday. This will be a major focus for the company during 2020.
“If we are going to tackle major issues against climate change, we need to tackle food waste,” Naguib said.
According to the World Wildlife Foundation, about 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions could be eliminated if food waste were brought to zero. Aviation, by comparison, accounts for 2 percent of global emissions.
Naguib explained that the hotel brand started by testing out food waste reduction strategies at 10 properties and then developed a path for all its hotels.
Don’t worry that Marriott will entirely eliminate the breakfast buffet. Naguib added that the company is working on ways on ways to prevent customers from throwing away unwanted food and to help chefs change the way they prepare meals—and through smarter, more sustainable sourcing. Some of the solutions are quite simple: Instead of re-filling a half-empty tray of scrambled eggs when meal service is nearly over, Marriott will put what’s left into smaller containers. Green eggs and ham, indeed.
This article was written by Claire Ballentine from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
