Hilton’s Green Ramadan Initiative Reduces Food Waste by a Further 21%
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Hilton announced the results of its Green Ramadan 2024 initiative, which aimed to further reduce food waste across hotel operations during the holy month. Through the effort, Hilton saw a more than 20% reduction in post-consumer food waste.
Following the success of Green Ramadan 2023 where food waste was reduced by over 60%, the programme was scaled across 32 hotels in seven countries and served 239,000 guests during iftars and suhoors.
Participating hotels in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Türkiye and Malaysia undertook extensive sustainability training, and aimed to close the loop across the food value chain by focusing on local sourcing, sustainable gastronomy, forensic waste management, and diversion by donation and composting where possible. By adopting interventions such as guest messaging, smaller portions, live cooking stations, artfully reduced food displays and switching to à la carte menus, the campaign was able to break through the food waste awareness barriers with an educational and interactive approach.
Prior to the launch of this year’s initiative, the hotel teams were given instructive upskilling sessions and a food waste prevention playbook based on the key learnings gained from Green Ramadan 2023. These insights contributed to the success of the 2024 campaign, with food waste being reduced by 21% over the course of the month-long effort.
This is equivalent to more than 1.7 tonnes of food waste being avoided – enough to provide 4,300 meals. More than 7.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions were also prevented, equating to 488,523 smartphone charges, as hotel guests were empowered to adopt more sustainable and eco-friendly habits over the course of their stays. Items observed to be most frequently wasted included bread and pastry, vegetables and meats.
The campaign was launched as a collaboration between Hilton, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) West Asia under the impactful Recipe of Change campaign, and Winnow - an AI-enabled food waste management solution. In addition to creating ‘Green Ramadan tools to ‘prime’ guests to adopt more sustainable behaviors, the participating hotels also fostered effective working cultures that immersed their wider teams — including front house and culinary staff — in the spirit of the campaign.
About Winnow
Winnow builds artificial intelligence tools to help chefs run more profitable and sustainable kitchens by cutting food waste in half. Launched in a single staff restaurant in 2013, Winnow has now been adopted by more than 2,500 sites globally. Winnow is a registered B Corporation operating in 77 countries with offices in Chicago, London, Dubai, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca. Collectively, Winnow users are saving $70m annually, the equivalent of 50m meals a year from being wasted. For more information, visit www.winnowsolutions.com.
*For more information about Green Ramadan 2024, please watch this video.
**Thanks to the successful implementation of insightful interventions the baseline data recorded in week one was 14% lower at 129 grams per cover, than the data recorded at the end of Green Ramadan 2023, which resulted in 151 grams per cover of post-consumer waste. This was then reduced by a further 21% resulting in 102 grams per cover at the end of the month-long effort.
***Winnow estimates the average meal to be 400g.
****CO2e emissions are calculated by multiplying weight savings by 4.3. This is a blend of an FAO estimate of 4.6x and a WRAP estimate of 3.9x.
About Hilton
Hilton is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 22 world-class brands comprising more than 7,500 properties and nearly 1.2 million rooms, in 126 countries and territories. Dedicated to fulfilling its founding vision to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality, Hilton has welcomed over 3 billion guests in its more than 100-year history, was named the No. 1 World's Best Workplace by Great Place to Work and Fortune and has been recognized as a global leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for seven consecutive years. Hilton has introduced industry-leading technology enhancements to improve the guest experience, including Digital Key Share, automated complimentary room upgrades and the ability to book confirmed connecting rooms. Through the award-winning guest loyalty program Hilton Honors, the more than 180 million members who book directly with Hilton can earn Points for hotel stays and experiences money can't buy. With the free Hilton Honors app, guests can book their stay, select their room, check in, unlock their door with a Digital Key and check out, all from their smartphone. Visit stories.hilton.com for more information, and connect with Hilton on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
