We're a Force for Good
We’ve always been about people, and we always will. So, it makes sense that our sustainability programme is all about people too. It's called Force for Good. And it's about helping everyone – our customers, team members and suppliers to live and work well.
We want to be a place where everyone can reach their potential – no barrier to entry, no limits to growth. We want to make a meaningful contribution to our customers and communities. And we treat our people and planet with respect. Because how we treat people, and our impact on communities and the environment, is just as important as the experiences we provide.
Opportunity
No matter who you are or where you're from, you'll always be welcome with us.
Our latest news:
Local Art Stories; making our walls a Force for Good
We’re collaborating with Project Art Works, a visual arts organisation working with people who have complex needs, to showcase eight original pieces of their artworks in a selection of our hotels.
Opportunity
No matter who you are or where you're from, you'll always be welcome with us. We look for pride, passion and personality in our team members. Our coffee shops, hotels and restaurants are accessible and inclusive, meaning everyone can enjoy our hospitality or join our great team.
Investing in skills
We believe that there should be ‘no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition’. And we want to give people the chance to shine. With the best training and development programmes in the business, we're the place you can build your career.
Whitbread's Investing in Skills & Employment scheme aims to create 6,500 jobs, 6,000 apprenticeships and 7,500 placements by 2020. We help our team members develop their careers through continual training, whatever their age or ability.
The most inclusive hospitality brand
We’re passionate about creating an environment where everyone can reach their potential, with no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We recognise that diverse teams bring significant business benefits and we must cultivate the environment for diversity of thought to flourish.
We have a partnership with Derwen College, a specialist residential education centre for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities, who specialise in training students in skills needed to be independent and prepared for the workplace. To ensure training is effective, in 2016 we opened a fully functioning Premier Inn training centre at the college. After training at the college, students are given work experience opportunities in local Premier Inn sites which hopefully go on to become permanent positions in our hotels across the country.
A year later, we’re celebrating our first year since the opening of the facility and looking forward to what’s to come.
Community
We’re passionate about charity fundraising, serving our local communities and helping our customers make informed, healthy choices.
Customer wellbeing
We’re proud to serve safe, good quality and great-tasting food and drink. We want to make it easy for our customers to choose healthier eating options and indulge in the occasional treat. All our menus are free from artificial trans fats, MSG, GM products and ingredients, irradiated ingredients and mechanically recovered meat.
We support the Department of Health's Responsibility Deal pledge on salt reduction. We’re working with our suppliers to reduce salt, sugar, saturated fat and calorie levels in our restaurant dishes.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity
We’ve been the national charity partner of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity since 2012. We committed to raising £7.5m by 2017 to build the Premier Inn Clinical Building, a new, much-needed facility. We are delighted to have exceeded that goal, with team members, guests and suppliers helping us raise more than £10m to date.
The Premier Inn Clinical Building was officially opened by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge in January 2018. This fantastic new building has seven floors and covers eight clinical areas of expertise. Children can move into brand new, modern wards with en-suite bedrooms, and space for parents to comfortably stay with their child overnight.
Responsibility
From everyday efficiencies to bold new innovations, we always aim to have a positive impact on the environment. We’re proud of our industry-leading programme, recognised in 2016 with the Business in the Community (BITC) Environmental Leadership award.
We source responsibly
Our customers trust us to responsibly source the high-quality, good-value products they enjoy. We only work with suppliers who share our values and embrace the high standards we set. These include upholding human rights, food safety, ethical sourcing, animal welfare legislation, supply chain security to minimise food fraud, and not polluting the environment.
We source Farm Assured beef from the UK & Ireland, and our milk from Red Tractor Standard-assured British farms. We’re the first UK hotel and restaurant chain to sustainably source all wild-caught fish to MSC certification standards.
We build sustainably
We open hundreds of restaurants and new hotel rooms every year. Everything we build is to the highest sustainable standards, and our existing estate is continually refurbished and retrofitted with energy-efficient equipment and building materials.
We recognise the important role sustainability plays when building our hotels. That’s why we have also fitted an extra 21 sites with solar panels this year giving us a total of over 100 sites with solar panels.
We reduce our waste
100% of waste from Premier Inn and restaurants is diverted from landfill. We recycle used cooking oil, food, waste electrical items, glass, paper, cans and plastics.
We also recycle 100% of our beds, pillows and duvets. Not only this, but we were also the first UK business to sign up to Refill - meaning you can refill your water bottles for free at any of our sites.
We're energy efficient
We have made an industry leading sustainability commitment to cut carbon emissions intensity in half by 2025 and by as much as 88% by 2050.
As part of this commitment, we have continued to invest in energy efficiency projects to reduce our electrical consumption and we are extremely proud to say that we now have 100% renewable electricity supplying the hotels that we own.
Cutting our carbon emissions intensity by 50%
To mark Earth Day, we are making an industry-leading sustainability commitment which will see carbon emissions intensity cut in half by 2025 and by as much as 88% by 2050. This is all part of a wider Whitbread initiative which has set a science-based carbon target (SBT).