Note: I wrote this CSR and Sustainability feature for Centara Hotels & Resorts, the Central Group’s hotel business unit. The content was initially produced for the company’s corporate history project, and edited versions were distributed through internal, travel trade and consumer media channels in Thailand and overseas.
Building a sustainable, responsible success
Centara’s commitment to Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility has put the company on a path to a better, more meaningful kind of success — where communities are lifted, resources are respected, and opportunities remain abundant for future generations.
Centara’s core values of integrity, ethical behavior and sustainability guide the company’s managers and employees through the company’s multi-faceted roles: well-established business enterprise; major player in the hospitality industry; employer of thousands; and valued corporate citizen in numerous communities.
Policies for Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility provide the framework for taking action that leads to a better kind of success.
Sustainability
Sustainability holds a deep meaning beyond its environmental and financial applications. Centara’s sustainability vision incorporates seven practical objectives:
- Ensure operational standards meet or exceed local and international legislative environmental requirements;
- Implement systematic energy consumption management;
- Monitor and report on key environmental performance indicators (KPIs) to raise environmental awareness among company employees, guests and communities;
- Integrate sustainability considerations into all decision making;
- Ensure that every employee is fully aware of the sustainability policy and contributes through positive engagement;
- Educate clients and suppliers about the company’s sustainability policy and encourage them to adopt sustainable business management practices;
- Establish action plans on sustainability practices, and monitor them on a regular, consistent, company-wide basis.
Each sustainability initiative is designed to address the policy’s four interlinked elements: cultural diversity, social equity, environmental quality, and economic prosperity. The company’s Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs and Social Responsibility, Ms. Supatra Chirathivat, highlights recent sustainability initiatives vis-à-vis the policy’s four elements:
Cultural diversity
“Our cultural diversity efforts included active support of the Thai Heritage Preservation Campaign for the restoration of the main hall of Wat Pathum Wanaram.”
Social equity
“Recent social equity initiatives include providing funding for the construction of several Thai schools and materials for classroom use. Centara also established disaster relief funds to help victims of recent severe floods, and thousands of survival bags and blankets were distributed to residents affected by flooding in the provinces of Nakon Ratchasima, Hat Yai, Songkla and Ayutthaya, among others, in the South, North and Northeast of Thailand.”
Economic sufficiency
“Our community development program in Khon Kaen empowered many local farmers. Some have achieved two rice harvests in a single year, instead of just one. The program helped a number of farmers cut the usual planting-to-harvest cycle from eight months down to four. The initiative also taught farmers to add organic vegetable crops during the usual non-growing season, providing a welcome source of income during a normally difficult time.”
Environmental quality
“Centara has been actively promoting environmental sustainability for many years. The company joined the Green Globe initiative in 2007 as it aligned well with our desire to aggressively combat the adverse impact that globalization and climate change were having on natural resources and the environment. Being a public company in the tourism industry, we have a responsibility to safeguard the environment and take action to limit the release of greenhouse gases. It’s the responsible course to take for business sustainability, and for the wider communities-at-large.”
Corporate Social Responsibility
Centara’s CSR policy provides a framework for fulfilling the company’s responsibility to be a force for the betterment of society. CSR activities address five functional areas: community involvement, eco-technology awareness, education, partnership and products.
Here are highlights of some key initiatives across the five areas:
Community involvement
“Centara is committed to supporting a wide range of local community initiatives and events that produce social and environmental benefits,” says Khun Supatra. “Our UNICEF-sponsored Youth Career Development Program (YCDP) is now in its 10th year of expanding career opportunities in the hotel and tourism industry for young women from underprivileged communities in Thailand.”
The women, usually age 17–20, undergo five months of training in basic hotel industry skills and have the opportunity to become hotel employees after they graduate. Nearly 100 Centara employees are YCDP graduates.
Eco-technology awareness
Centara continues to invest in new technologies that contribute to sustainable building, improve indoor air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and boost the efficiency of energy, water and other resource consumption while reducing waste.
Among key initiatives:
- The company has installed new high-efficiency chillers, boilers and water heating systems; retrofitted lighting systems to reduce energy consumption; upgraded hotel electrical systems; installed solar water heaters; and retrofitted guestroom shower heads, faucets and water system technologies to reduce resource consumption.
- Centara formed a partnership with Earth Check, a professional worldwide international expert in environmental sustainability certification for travel and tourism operators. Earth Check’s science-based approach helps many of the world’s leading travel and tourism companies address risk, deliver bottom-line efficiencies, maximize guest experience, and minimize environmental footprints.
- All Centara Grand properties are being upgraded to meet Earth Check’s international standards of environmental best practices, putting the company among the world’s travel and tourism environmental leaders.
- The environmental initiatives are being actively embraced by hotel guests as well as Centara employees. “We’ve seen tremendous cooperation between staff and management,” says Khun Supatra. “And literally every single person at the hotels has played a part. We have even had enthusiastic participation from many hotel guests, as everyone realizes how important these programs truly are.”
Education
Centara employs more than 4,000 people in Thailand and overseas. Employee training and development is an important objective of its CSR policy — and critical to sustaining high levels of service quality. Each hotel property offers a wide range of training courses designed to strengthen individual skills and improve quality of service.
Along with individual job-focused training, the company provides staff training in environmental and social awareness. That reflects Centara’s commitment to investing in the development of its human resources. “When an employee develops this type of knowledge base and skill set,” Khun Supatra notes, “he or she can put them to good use, for the benefit of the entire community they call home.”
Partnership
Joining forces with local and national government agencies, international organizations, and companies throughout the supply chain helps strengthen environmental and sustainability practices on a wider scale. Centara’s partnership with ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) reflects the company’s commitment to ending the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
“The company officially adopted the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism,” Khun Supatra explains. “The code was drawn up by ECPAT and the World Tourism Organization and establishes the principles for an active policy to combat child sex tourism. By joining this initiative, Centara is committed to training its employees and to boosting customer awareness of this important issue.”
Products
Centara is a major purchaser of products, capital equipment and services. As part of its sustainability and CSR objectives, the company conducts frequent reviews of its procurement process to expand sourcing of locally-made, sustainable, recyclable and environmentally-friendlier products. Procurement guidelines promote the company-wide awareness of its sustainability and responsibility visions.
Past and future
Centara’s commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility goes beyond policies and words. It is a catalyst for tangible, measurable, and ethical efforts to ensure the company remains sufficiently strong and resilient, providing future generations with opportunity and prosperity as abundant as today.
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