Protea Hotels is conscious of our responsibility as a major Hotelier – who in partnership, serve millions of customers every year in communities across South Africa and Africa. We recognise the need to understand, make decisions, plan, and manage our impact – the way we treat people, serve our customers, invest in local communities, provide returns to our shareholders, manage our supply chain and affect the environment – and take the opportunity to help achieve lasting and beneficial change that extend beyond our operations.
We do not view sustainability as an additional strategy or range of new activities. Rather it is about influencing all corporate strategies – creating integration and deepening our work to bring effect to profit (Prosperity), society (People), and environment Planet). We recognise that this calls for a shift in the way we approach the very issues that face our business on a daily basis.
This Sustainability Statement of Intent reflects our first committed step towards envisioning, forming and implementing a Corporate Sustainability Strategy. Our statement has as its objective to engender a common and shared understanding, purpose, and commitment towards issues of sustainability within Protea Hotels.
VISION
Number one hotel operating company
Protea Hotels’ vision is to become “Africa’s number one hotel operating company. In line with our vision, Protea Hotels’ seeks to answer two questions in stating its intent towards sustainably.
Firstly, what does it mean to be the “number one operating company” in its field?
Secondly, what does it mean to achieve this within an “African” context?
Innovations & adaptatility
Thus, to be the number one operating company, Protea Hotels’ intends to become a resilient leader in its field through investing in the innovations and adaptability of its people and stakeholders to build on existing best practices and to generate new ideas and services that shift the focus to the present and the future – instead of only trying to fix the past.
Assessments & analysis
Furthermore, In order to incorporate this into our operations, Protea Hotels will make assessments and an analysis of current practices towards adopting a system of integrated management, performance and reporting focused on People, Planet, and Prosperity.
Social & natural environment
To achieve the above within an African context, The Protea Hotels intends to move beyond minimising its impact and damage to the social and natural environment. Instead, Protea Hotels will take every opportunity to grow and develop its business practices, services and brand while restoring and re- building these elements.
Fairtrade coffee
Protea Hotels serves Fairtrade Certified Coffee sourced by small-scale farming communities in East Africa. By buying coffee on Fairtrade terms, we make sure that the highest social and environmental standards are met and that the farmers receive a premium to invest in the development of their communities.