Meliá Hotels International, Third Most Sustainable Hotel Company in the World in 2018
The Company makes a strong debut in the ranking made by the sustainable investment agency RobecoSAM, responsible for evaluating companies to define the composition of the Dow Jones sustainability Index, a benchmark for ESG investment.
Meliá Hotels International continues to make progress in becoming a leading company in responsibility and sustainability in the hotel industry. This objective encompasses everything from tangible aspects of the business such as tax strategy or Corporate Governance, to more intangible aspects such as risk management, stakeholder relations, ethics, environmental management, human rights and talent management, among many others.
This responsible business strategy forms part of the Strategic Plan led by the Executive Vice President, Gabriel Escarrer, and the entire management team, and has now been acknowledged by RobecoSAM, the most prestigious international agency specialising in sustainable investment. According to the agency, Meliá is the third best company in the world in the "Hotels, resorts and cruise lines" category, and second in Europe, only behind industry giants such as Intercontinental and Hilton.
Companies under evaluation have to respond to an extensive questionnaire every year on issues such as corporate governance systems, climate change strategy or talent management, the results of which determine their sustainability performance. Questions are grouped into three categories: economic, environmental and social, and Meliá came first in the economic and environmental dimensions, where it achieved the highest possible score (100 points). Each category is divided into 20 criteria, and Meliá obtained the highest score in two of them and also led the industry (percentile 100) in criteria such as Crisis and Risk Management, Fiscal Strategy, Environmental Reporting and Energy Eco-efficiency.
The Executive Vice President and CEO of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer, recalled that "thanks to their importance in the socio-economic and environmental development of destinations and their influence on multiple stakeholders, travel companies play a fundamental role in promoting sustainability. As a company with a family origin and values, Meliá is strongly committed to sustainability on the human, strategic and operational levels".
Launched in 1999, the family of Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) are an international benchmark for measuring corporate sustainability. Based on the 3,500 largest companies in the world by market capitalisation plus other companies that voluntarily submit to evaluation, it uses a "best in class" approach to select between 10% and 15% (depending on the index) of companies that the evaluation indicates are most sustainable. Although Meliá is not yet part of the group of companies eligible for inclusion in the DJSI, mainly due to its market capitalization and free-float percentage, the results show that it ranks among the best companies in the world in sustainability.
The ranking is ratified every year to take into account constant progress in sustainability and has a major influence on both the global reputation of companies and on investors that increasingly pay greater attention to non-financial factors in investment decisions.
Amit Singh
Mumbai, India
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