Press release:
We believe this is the biggest commitment of its kind across the hotel industry, and a much needed one. We’ve already stopped using plastic straws and stirrers at our restaurants, and we’ve never used plastic miniature shower products at our hotels.
In total we’re going to remove hundreds of millions of unnecessary single-use plastic items, like sauce sachets and nappy bags. Behind the scenes we’ll be reducing our food and textile packaging – anything that isn’t needed means more waste and increased carbon emissions. Necessary use of plastic, for example where it is required for food safety reasons, or where removal would have unintended environmental impacts, will still be subject to improvements and will be reduced or replaced with recyclable and recycled alternatives.
Our managing director, Simon Ewins, said, “Whitbread has a long history of minimising the unnecessary use of single-use plastics – Premier Inn has never used miniature bath and shower products and we were one of the first businesses to eliminate plastic straws and stirrers, so we’ve already made huge steps, particularly in terms of consumer-facing plastics - this is just the start.
In many ways what we’re looking at now with our 2025 commitment is the less visible stuff - the hard yards that collectively can make a huge difference. It’s about forensically examining our supply chain and eliminating the use of unnecessary single-use plastics wherever we can – from the products consumers will notice, to those behind-the-scenes that they won’t, right down to wrappers on textiles. As with any meaningful commitment to change – it won’t happen overnight but we’re unwavering in our belief that eliminating unnecessary single-use plastics is absolutely the right thing to do for our business, our guests and the environment.”
The scale of what we’re planning is huge, but we need to make these changes for the good of the business, our guests and the environment. We’re looking forward to doing business better and cutting out unnecessary single-use plastics throughout all our hotels and restaurants.
*Plastics or plastic packaging that is: used instantaneously as a one-off application, (e.g. single milk portion carton) AND is unnecessary: For food safety purposes; to allow extended shelf life / protect product; or, where removal does not lead to unintended consequences (e.g. increased food waste / increased carbon emissions from additional transportation)