A SUSTAINABLE START
OUR WAY TO AGENDA 2030
Everyone has to take responsibility and as we see it, it is important for us as a big player, that we are responsible for our imprints and that these remain green and as small as possible. Through the UN’s climate goals, we set goals and demands on ourselves so that we can contribute and be part of the future.
NO POVERTY
We work with poverty mainly locally and to make improvements for those who lives in the city of Gothenburg. Every year we do a central campaign called Lonely Christmas Tree: Before Christmas we gather in Christmas presents which are later donated to those in poverty or without a home and their children and grandchildren. The gifts is given from us at the hotel, our employees and several generous residents in Gothenburg.
Leftover clothing: Left-over clothes at the hotel are nothing unusual, and if we do not find owners, we donate the clothes better answers that can save pingers and use it for other basic needs.
NO HUNGER
We donate food: At conferences and events when food becomes over, we donate it toorganisations which then passes the food on to those who go hungry. Examples of the food can be large quantities of sandwiches.
Christmas food: Every year we organize a free Christmas table when we light our huge rosette surrounding the bulding. At these events there are between 350 – 400 people who can also bring their lunch box if it is over. The Christmas table also offers sales opportunities since the sellers during the opening and the time the rosette is up has an exhibition outside the hotel, which in the long term can help to secure the food supply through increased revenue.
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Abuse: At ClarionPost, we have zero tolerance for drugs and other substances, to help employees, we partner with Alna, an organization that helps people from abuse where staff gets help if needed. During work hours, smoking bans apply.
Health insurance: All officials are covered by health insurance where there is the possibility of therapy, coaching and ergonomic assistance.
Training and health: The staff receive SEK 1500 annually in health care allowance. There is the opportunity for group training, yoga and meditation during working hours at Skönhetsfabriken and in addition we also organize events such as running ´Göteborgsvarvet´ or ´Vårruset´, for example. An annual recurring activity is a pulse for UNICEF, which means that employees are motivated to exercise 30 minutes a day and for this money is donated to UNICEF, which also contributes well elsewhere.
GOOD EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE
Internships for young people: Clarion Post works with internships for young people in the hotel industry, which means that 2 days a week, 20 students have internships and training at the hotel. The project is part of an apprenticeship at Realgymnasiet. The hotel has hired teachers and supervisors to provide quality assured education.
External: Several of the staff at the hotel sit on boards of education councils for upper secondary and vocational colleges to ensure competence and quality of hotel education in the future.
EQUALITY
Here we have an equality plan at the hotel to promote everyone who works here. We also have a payroll survey to reduce income gaps among staff. We also pay attention to ruler technology and provide training in how technology can be handled to avoid the peronals getting bad.
Trafficking: One of our core issues is reducing and preventing trafficking of women and girls. Hotels are a common environment where meetings are arranged and young women are sold. We collaborate with Real Stars who work actively through lobbying and informing politicians, and we also give Real Stars room for conferences and seminars where these types of issues are discussed.
The staff at the hotel receive training so that they know how to handle the situation when detecting trafficking in human beings and that the exposed can get immediate help. They have had success stories at the hotel which we are very proud of.
´Räddningsmissionen´ also has an annual lecture at the hotel where it has previously collected more than SEK 150,000. This money has been donated to their women’s business and support housing in Gothenburg.
PURE WATER AND SANITY
When cleaning the hotel’s public areas, we use UltraH2O to filter and deionize our tap water. This way we can avoid using chemicals.
To reduce water use, flushing showers, taps and toilets have been installed on all public areas. The taps on the toilets now only draw 1.3 liters of water per minute while conventional taps draw around 10 liters per minute. We see this as a clear improvement and we have a goal that this is installed on all cranes throughout the building.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR EVERYONE
All electricity used at the hotel is 100% renewable and comes from Green energy. We also use district heating and district cooling for heating and cooling. We use Biogas in the kitchen instead of natural gas. We collaborate with Gothenburg Energy by providing the garbage that arises for combustion for new energy and we work actively to recover energy & heat that comes from cooling plants or ventilation. Furthermore, we can use this for other parts and activities of the hotel.
The lighting goes on a time loop, when the bar is not open and in the middle of the day there is not as much power in the lamps as it is in the evening.
DECENT WORKING CONDITIONS & ECONOMIC GROWTH
In September 2017, Sweet Dreams Stay was launched, a venture to help vulnerable children and provide greater opportunity for all hotel guests to get involved and help easily. The idea is simple but powerful. To refrain from room cleaning one night, we will donate money to UNICEF. All you have to do is make sure your Sweet Dreams Stay sign hangs outside your door as you go to bed. This has become a success throughout Nordic Choice Hotels and in the long term this is predicted to become an industry standard.
At Clarion Post, we work on training the staff at the hotel annually about security, fire, leadership and service. This is because all staff need the knowledgeable staff who work at the hotel, but also to strengthen our employees in knowledge and actions in a crisis situation.
Internal training is also conducted in Swedish with a focus on concepts that are important in the hotel operations for staff in need of this.
SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRY, INNOVATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE
At Clarion Post, we are constantly working on new innovative ideas and changes to make our business as sustainable as possible. In the spring of 2020, we will build 40 new rooms and this time with high demands on water, electricity, environmentally friendly drawing & materials. Also the decor. Everything to make these as durable as possible and that includes the entire construction process. As we grow as a hotel, it also contributes to more jobs.
REDUCED INEQUALITY
What we do to reduce inequality?
We are very positive about diversity and employ our staff completely regardless of origin, sexual orientation, gender, functional variation or age. We actively employ new arrivals to integrate into the business and we believe that diversity can contribute to our own understanding and increased awareness of our guests. Together we can speak many languages and in this way give the guest greater security. As a chain (Clarion Hotel) we are very involved in Pride and also stand as co-organizer and sponsor.
Many of our staff attend Pride every year to show our support and many of the participants in the parade and around the event live to our great delight in our hotel.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND SOCIETIES
Clarion Post is ISO certified according to ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is a collective name for international standards in environmental management. Together, they create a system to continuously improve the environmental work of a company. In order to receive the certification, there must be a clear focus on environmental improvement measures, the results must be registered, and the targets must be adjusted every year.
Breakfast at the hotel is KRAV certified.
One of our contributions to a greener city is that we manage our waste so that it does not burden Gothenburg locally. We do it through recycling and reuse.
We work actively to ensure that our deliveries to the restaurants are coordinated and that all departments receive their deliveries at the same time so that the transport does not have to travel back and forth several times. This in turn reduces emissions and improves air quality in Gothenburg.
When our staff travel, we mainly use trains as a means of transport, we keep a limit on how much the hotel staff is allowed to fly. We cooperate with MTR and invite all our guests to travel by train to us. We are happy neighbors with the train station in Gothenburg and it is very easy to travel to us by train, and also bus.
SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
Reduced use of materials: We aim to phase out all disposable plastic and make all disposable materials compostable. The disposable articles we need to use must be purchased from Duni and the eco series where the articles are 99% compostable. Our conference material should be degradable.
Food: We have no food left that contains palm oil. For example, our Nutella which is popular at breakfast is exchanged as well as everything edible in the bars and in the hotel rooms.
We are also constantly working on our management of food waste. An example is by using smaller plates at breakfast so that our guests spend less on the plate and further throw less. Both internal and external campaigns are constantly taking place to reduce food waste and our staff is constantly fighting for new solutions in the business.
Our restaurants also buy Ugly greens to reduce the loss of vegetables so now we also use vegetables with some defects and beauty spots. Since April 1st of last year, we serve a lot of vegetarian lunches at the conference. We like to think that we can be 100% vegetarian here but today we offer a range of protein as well. The goal is to reduce the animal protein.
FIGHT THE CLIMATE CHANGE
We try to fight climate change in all the strategy and planning we do for our future. It is therefore important that we improve our knowledge and how we can be more sustainable. It requires restructuring and time and is a must for our development.
We place high demands on the foods we import and that the working conditions are optimal for the production of the product. Text our coffee Fairtrade.
SEA AND MARINE RESOURCES
Today, 86 percent of the ocean’s fish stocks are already fully utilized or overfished, while the need for food continues to increase. Traceability certification is about taking control of every step in the value chain that allows you to trace the product all the way from the plate back to the sea. It is the certification bodies MSC and ASC that will ensure that fishing of wild-caught food from the sea and production takes place without affecting the stocks, animal welfare and with minimal environmental impact. MSC and ASC also guarantee good social working conditions for local workers. At Clarion Post we only serve fish that are MSC or ASC-labeled.
We have already mentioned that we are reducing plastic use and that is because it also has such positive effects on the state of the sea. Our restaurants do not buy any red-listed fish to favor the fishing conditions and we try to be very careful with garbage sorting to make sure that nothing ends up in the sea that should not be there.
ECOSYSTEM AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
Inspired by two-thirds of all Sweden’s municipalities, we at Clarion Post have chosen to remove all use of feathers to pay attention to animal welfare. An Easter at is a spring-free Easter and everyone acts like we do on this issue, we include the animals in our sustainability thinking.
PEACEFUL AND INCLUDING SOCIETIES
Every year we get involved in PRIDE, just like our entire brand Clarion Hotel does. We also stand as co-organizers at Pride in Gothenburg and arrange weddings and parties at the hotel as part of the festivities. Many of our staff participate in the Pride train with all the color we can to show our support. We get many accommodation guests at the hotel during the week of pride and it is to our great pleasure.
We are also very proud co-organizers of the Musikschlaget. The Musikschlaget is Sweden’s melodic festival for musicians with disabilities, which is also arranged by people with disabilities, in collaboration with Bilda. One of the competitions will take place at Clarion Post 2020.
IMPLEMENTING AND GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP
In September 2017, Sweet Dreams Stay was launched, a venture to help vulnerable children and provide greater opportunity for all hotel guests to get involved and help easily. The idea is simple but powerful. To refrain from room cleaning one night, we will donate money to UNICEF. All you have to do is make sure your Sweet Dreams Stay sign hangs outside your door as you go to bed.
Clarion Post actively hires new arrivals to integrate into the business and we see a strong advantage in our breadth of staff and together we speak a variety of languages.
Future sustainability projects for us
● Grow more themselves and buy more locally produced food
● Buy more fish grown in an aquaponics system and own fishing boat.
● Buying Bokashi, a composting machine and using fertilizer in crops
● 100% recyclable material in staff work clothes
● The hotel rooms should still be more economical with water and to reuse the shower water
● To communicate sustainability work to our guests through information
● To do a project together with PLAN international for safer cities through safe areas
● Acquire insect hotels and beehives for growing honey.