Leadership Statements
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Doing good does not always mean doing more, but often requires doing things better. Consequently, we have focussed our sustainability endeavours as we strive to RAISE the bar and increase Resilience in communities and environments where we operate, Align our efforts with global initiatives, drive Innovation to tackle new challenges, and connect with Stakeholders to increase Engagement.
Aligning our approach with the Sustainable Development Goals, we address global contemporary issues within local contexts and better frame our efforts for future challenges. Implementing a philosophy of reduce, refuse, reuse, recycle and remove we began to tackle the global issue of single use plastic. Reducing food waste and evaluating our supply chains are moving to the fore of our sustainability strategy.
We look to raise the standards of good practices, raise awareness in the community on climate change impact and corrective agendas, and raise the spirit of partnership with various agencies to do good, to ultimately create stewardship for the global community and environment.
Yours Sincerely,
Ms Claire Chiang
Chairperson, Banyan Tree Global Foundation
Executive Chairman’s Message
Singapore declared 2018 the year of climate action. While it can be easy to become immune to climate change warnings, or complacent in our actions, the recent IPCC report reinforced the threat climate change poses to the world. Now more than ever it is important for us to heed these warnings, and to act with ever greater vigilance. As a business founded on sustainable development, we continue to embed climate
change within our sustainability efforts and business decisions. Adhering to the precautionary principle isn’t always enough, and we strive to do more than the bare minimum.
A sustainable mindset may be seen as a disturbance to business, much like climate change to the environment. However, a forward thinking approach is necessary for us to ensure that business, the livelihoods and communities it supports, and the environment in which we operate, develops and maintains resilience to future change.
We hope our efforts reported here encourage others, and we commit to always do more so that travellers can continue to “Stay for Good” with Banyan Tree.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr Ho Kwon Ping
Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited
As 2014 marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of Banyan Tree Phuket, the first ever Banyan Tree resort, we looked back at our journey thus far.
From a personal value shared by us at the inception of the brand and our single resort in 1994, our core founding value of sustainability has progressed over the past two decades:
- to managing or having stakes in 35 resorts and hotels, 70 spas, 83 retail outlets and three golf courses;
- to creating over 10,000 permanent new jobs globally across our resorts, spas, retail outlets, and golf courses;
- to manifesting throughout the design and development of our hotels;
- to each hotel being externally certified by third parties to EarthCheck’s globally leading sustainable tourism standards for development and operations;
- to institutionalising the Green Imperative Fund’s crowd funding matched by hotels in support of social and/or environmental projects where the primary beneficiary is external to Banyan Tree;
- to remaining active within the United Nations Global Compact since 2005 and the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism since 2013;
- to establishing Banyan Tree Global Foundation as a separate entity to enhance transparency and safeguards that such funds collected will in fact Embrace the Environment and Empower People;
- to formalizing a three-pillar approach of enhancing operational efficiency, protecting biodiversity, and developing local capacity;
- to our annual group wide efforts and targets which have collectively planted over 358,000 trees and provided a combined structure of mentorships and scholarships to over 74 young people in 8 years.
Beyond numbers, our goal has always been to create a magical experience for our guests. The outpouring of support for our sustainability efforts from past and present guests shared via social media during our 20th anniversary celebrations answered a question we were repeatedly asked during the process of our initial public offering some nine years ago- “Will Banyan Tree continue its sustainability efforts as a publicly listed company?” Yes, sustainability will remain core to our business; it must as it is demanded by our guests, our associates, our business partners, and we demand it of ourselves.
Yours Sincerely,
Mr Ho Kwon Ping
Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited