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Most Big Hotel Chains Are Now Committed on Plastics: Here’s the Problem With Promises

Sarah Enelow-Snyder

Photo Credit: Shown here is Sequana Tower, Accor corporate headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. Accor has joined hotel chains IHG, Hyatt, Marriott with its pledge to eliminate single-use plastics by the end of 2022. Accor

Skift Take

We're drowning in press releases about global hotel companies promising to reduce their reliance on single-use plastics. Most of these items require alternatives though, so what are they?

Accor is the latest major hotel company to double down on reducing plastic waste, specifically by pledging this week to eliminate all single-use plastics as part of the guest experience — in guest rooms, meeting areas, restaurants, and leisure activity areas — by the end of 2022. This does not cover back-of-house waste. Accor is in good company, having followed similar single-use plastics vows by industry giants like IHG, Hyatt, and Marriott, most of whose self-imposed deadlines have yet to arrive. But here’s the problem with promises. Promises are unenforceable and the public forgets about them as soon as the news cycle moves on — Edition Hotels is an outlier in honorably admitting that it failed to eliminate single-use plastics by its deadline. PR motivation to keep the pro

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