At Premier Inn we want to be a Force for Good in everything we do. As the UK’s largest hotel chain, we have a responsibility to our teams, the communities we’re part of and the world around us to act responsibly and sustainably.
We believe in creating a space where everyone who works for us can reach their full potential, ensuring we reduce our impact on the environment and investing in the communities we operate in.
We have over 800 hotels across the UK and every single one of them is built into a community. We pride ourselves on playing an active role in those communities, whether that’s through charity fundraising, volunteering or providing work experience opportunities.
Every time a new hotel or restaurant opens, we’re joining a new community. We support and sponsor each team member at our new sites to volunteer three hours to a local cause that both they and local residents are passionate about. This can be anything from picking up litter to redecorating community centres or donating to food banks. It works for everyone – we learn more about the communities we’re part of, and the community gets to see more of who we really are.
We’ve been partnered with the fantastic Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH) since 2012. Since then we’ve raised over £15m through our teams, guests and suppliers. £7.5m of this helped to build the Premier Inn Clinical Building; a new, much-needed facility at the hospital.
Premier Inn team members voted overwhelmingly in favour of continuing our partnership with GOSH in 2017 and we pledged to raise a further £10 million towards a new Sight and Sound Centre. Due to open in 2020, the centre will be the first dedicated medical facility for children with sight and hearing loss in the UK.
We’re proud to serve high quality, great-tasting food and drink. That’s why we’re committed to improving the nutritional value of our menu by continuing to reduce sugar, salt and calories and will continue to develop inclusive menus for customers with a range of dietary needs. We will do this in a responsible and transparent way whilst maintaining great taste, quality and value for money for our guests. Not only this but we are striving to be a leader in our sector for delicious, appealing and healthier children’s food.
During the coronavirus crisis, we were able to support key workers while protecting both them and our team members. In these unprecedented times, we donated over 335,000 meals from our restaurants to charity, put on displays in support of the NHS and championed our team members to raise money for the NHS.
Thanks to our continued partnership with the food poverty charity network FareShare and our new partner, The Real Junk Food Project, our restaurants have donated over 140 tonnes of food to those who need them most during the coronavirus pandemic.
Read moreOur Cardiff Bay hotel put on spectacular display in honour of NHS staff and other key workers by arranging room lights to spell out the letters ‘NHS’, inspiring a trend to light up our hotels across the country.
Read moreWe want our hotels and restaurants to be places our team are proud to work in, while providing the best possible experience for our guests. Our hotels and restaurants are accessible and inclusive – no matter who you are, we believe in building on our team’s potential and making sure our team members get the most from their time with us.
We know that diverse teams make winning teams. We’re committed to actively breaking down barriers to entry so that we can be an inclusive and representative employer. And once our team members are part of the Premier Inn family, we are committed to ensuring they feel represented and respected, regardless of how they identify.
Whether you're working with us, or enjoying our hospitality, our hotels and restaurants are the most welcoming places to be thanks to our friendly staff and how accessible our buildings are. We pride ourselves on making sure that every single person we work with, or serve, feels welcome.
With leading training and development programmes, we're a place you can really build your career. We support our team members to develop their careers through a range of training opportunities, including our leading apprenticeship programmes, whatever their age or ability. We care about helping our team members be the best they can be through supporting cross functional and meaningful career development.
We want to ensure that everyone we work with feels welcome at Whitbread. Through listening genuinely to our team members, we are able to work to effectively support their physical and mental wellbeing.
We know our work affects the environment and the people around us, which is why we have industry leading targets across our programme to reduce our impact on the environment and respect the human rights of workers across our value chain.
We only work with suppliers who share our values and meet our high standards. We pride ourselves on working with our suppliers to continuously ensure that human rights are respected across our value chain and source products to internationally recognised sustainability standards.
For example, we source Farm Assured beef from the UK & Ireland, our milk from Red Tractor Standard-assured British farms and were the first UK hotel and restaurant chain to sustainably source all wild-caught fish to MSC certification standards.
We’re committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and we’re already really proud of our achievements so far; we use 100% renewable energy to power our hotels, and we have solar panels installed on over 180 of them. We’ve also planted roof gardens on some of our hotels to help support local biodiversity, and encourage birds, bees and other wonderful wildlife to thrive at our buildings.
We’ve recently set an industry-leading target to reduce our carbon emissions intensity by 50% by 2025 and we’re going one step further by going Net-zero on our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2050.
All waste from our hotels and restaurants is diverted from landfill, and we recycle all of our beds, pillows and duvets. We’re working to remove all unnecessary single-use plastics from our hotels and restaurants by 2025. We were also the first business in the UK to sign up to Refill – offering free water bottle refills at over 3000 sites.
The Premier Inn Clinical Building at Great Ormond Street Hospital officially opened its doors in January 2018, after our teams raised £7.5m in pledges. The Premier Inn Clinical Building has seven floors and includes en suite bedrooms for patients.
Our Force for Good sustainability programme continues at Whitbread.com
