Whitbread launches new CSR targets for 2020
Whitbread will aim to create 21,000 new jobs and apprenticeships, raise £25m for charity, and reduce carbon emissions by 15% as part of its new "Good Together 2020" targets.
Each target forms part of the group's overall corporate and social responsibility (CSR) programme, Good Together, which centres on the values of teams and communities, customer wellbeing, and the environment.
The plans include the creation of 15,000 new jobs, plus 7,500 work experience placements for school and college pupils, and 6,500 structured employment placements over the next five years. The news follows the announcement of 6,000 new apprenticeships by the company in addition to the above, which was first reported last month.
Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants combined will also aim to raise £10m for charity, of which £7.5m will go to help build the Premier Inn Clinical Building at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.
Whitbread has also committed to minimising its water consumption and waste production, having exceeded its 2017 targets already. The new plans for 2020 include a reduction of carbon production by 15%, and use of water by 20%, compared with figures achieved in 2014. It also hopes to reduce the direct operations recycling rate by 80%, and confirm accredited suppliers for ten products (cocoa, coffee, cotton, fish, meat, palm oil, soy, sugar, tea and timber).
The programme will set reduction targets in sugar and salt across the business.
Whitbread, whose brands include Costa Coffee and Premier Inn, launched the Good Together programme in 2009, with goals set for 2017.
Andy Harrison, chief executive of Whitbread, said: "As we grow, we have an even greater responsibility to consider our wider environmental and societal impact. Our Good Together programme is an integral part of how we do business at Whitbread. We aim to be a leader in developing sustainable business practices within our sector."
Simon Ewins, director of CSR at Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants said: "At Whitbread, we set ourselves stretching targetsâ¦[and] we are incredibly proud of the progress we have made towards our existing 2017 targets, and it was important for us to review these achievements and push ourselves further to achieve more."
Whitbread has also recently announced plans to introduce a new training scheme at Costa Coffee, in the same vein as its Premier Inn programme.
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