Accor leads hospitality sustainability shift through procurement innovation

Accor’s strategic focus on responsible procurement is transforming hotel operations by removing plastics, enforcing supplier standards, and pioneering industry collaborations to embed measurable sustainability outcomes into everyday hotel management.

For Accor, the journey from corporate commitments to day‑to‑day sustainability is being routed through its purchasing function, where choices about towels, soap and food become levers for measurable change. According ...

to the original report, Astore, Accor’s global purchasing organisation, has made responsible procurement central to translating the group’s CSR targets into operational reality at hotel level.

Caroline Tissot, Accor’s chief procurement officer, told SkiftX that “Without a responsible and forward‑thinking procurement function, delivering meaningful change and achieving genuine sustainability transformation is significantly more challenging , or maybe even impossible.” That philosophy underpins two linked priorities: widening the product and service offer so hotels can adopt greener options without operational compromise, and lifting supplier standards across environmental, social and ethical dimensions.

The practical shifts have been concrete. Procurement steered a two‑year supplier collaboration to remove more than 50 single‑use plastic items from the guest experience across nearly 90 percent of Accor hotels , a move the company says encouraged suppliers to offer eco‑friendly alternatives more broadly. According to the original report, ensuring those alternatives are both operationally effective and price‑competitive has been essential to scaling uptake and supporting targets such as third‑party eco‑certifications for properties and a 60 percent cut in food waste by 2030.

Astore has also formalised expectations for suppliers through Accor’s Responsible Procurement Charter. The charter, the group’s cornerstone for sustainable commercial relationships, requires suppliers to commit to standards on human rights, working conditions, ethics, health and safety, and environmental protection. The company said in a statement that the charter is systematically associated with purchasing and listing contracts to create a shared baseline across its supply base.

Beyond contractual commitments, Accor has invested in tools and programmes to close capability gaps. Speaking to SkiftX, Tissot said the group “didn’t wait for suppliers to mature; we chose to act and help drive that maturity. Because nothing existed at this scale, we created everything ourselves: the methodology, the tools, the training.” The approach reportedly onboarded around 1,000 suppliers , representing roughly three quarters of Accor’s volumes , into a structured supply‑chain decarbonisation programme in under a year.

That programme, branded internally as Achieving Net Zero Together, was recognised externally when Accor won the World Sustainable Travel & Hospitality Award for supply‑chain decarbonisation in 2025. Industry data shows the initiative combines carbon‑maturity assessment, emissions‑reduction measures and promotion of low‑carbon offers to help hotels and suppliers lower Scope‑3 exposure while preserving resilience.

Accor has also worked to expand industry alignment. The group co‑founded the Hospitality Alliance for Responsible Procurement (HARP) with several global hotel groups and purchasing organisations to harmonise evaluation methodologies and tools for supplier sustainability performance. According to the alliance’s partners, pooling assessment frameworks and best practices can accelerate change across hospitality supply chains more effectively than isolated company programmes.

Procurement’s evolving remit is presented as a resilience play as much as an environmental one. The company said in a statement that by shifting procurement from a narrow cost‑control role to one focused on risk mitigation and supply security, hotels are better placed to manage price volatility, material shortages and geopolitical disruption , while also meeting growing guest demand for sustainable stays.

Still, the model relies on sustained supplier engagement and verification. Astore continues to deploy supplier control plans and third‑party assessments to identify compliance risks, and it offers product ranges , including plastic‑free and circular solutions and responsibly sourced food and beverage options , intended to make sustainable operations practical for hundreds of properties.

If Accor’s experience is a test case, it suggests that converting corporate sustainability pledges into measurable hotel‑level outcomes requires both commercial levers and capacity building across suppliers. The company claims its combined approach , contractual standards, sector collaboration through HARP, targeted decarbonisation tools and front‑line procurement support , can both reduce emissions and bolster business resilience as sustainability shifts from aspiration to everyday practice.

Source: Noah Wire Services