Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, Hong Kong & Global

Finalist, Global Tourism Business Award

Shangri-La is a Hong Kong based luxury hotel group with 69 operating properties in Asia, the Middle East and North America. Its CSR strategy centres on the five key principles of environment, supply chain management, stakeholder relations, employees and health and safety. Shangri-La has devised three specific initiatives to sustainable management.
The first is "Sustainability, Shangri-La's Social Responsibility": starting in 2004 with initial carbon mitigation programmes, 60% of Shangri-La's properties are ISO14000 certified and the aim is to that the remaining properties become certified within the next 3-4 years. It follows LEED Gold standards for its buildings and has comprehensive environmental footprint-saving measures through the way it deals with water, waste and energy.
Secondly, the "Sanctuary, Shangri-La's Care for Nature Project": Shangri-La properties engage in nature conservation such as orang-utan rehabilitation centres in Kota Kinabalu or turtle hatchery eco-laboratories in Muscat and the Maldives. These resort-based rehabilitation programmes not only aid nature conservation but also form part of the guest activities and eco-learning opportunities.
Finally, "Embrace, Shangri-La's Care for People". This programme commits every Shangri-La property to engage with a children's beneficiary programme over the next 10-15 years focussing on health care and education. EMBRACE has to date worked with over 60 orphanages, schools and hospitals directly benefitting the wellbeing of 3,000 children of 16 different nationalities. Furthermore, all Shangri-La properties have nearly 100% local employment for construction jobs at the staff level.
In 2010, Shangri-La published a CSR Digest to track and share its best practices across all properties and encourage replication across the group. Built on traditional and conservative Asian values, Shangri-La aims at a holistic approach with people, planet and profit in equilibrium.