Hyatt Provides Update on World of Care Progress & Initiatives

Hyatt has released its progress update on its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) program, World of Care, for 2021.

The initiative was created to share the hotel corporation’s progress on everything from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) goals to its sustainability goals.

The report celebrates a new partnership with AHLA supporting victims of human trafficking in the U.S., provides an update on the progress of the corporation’s sustainability goals and showcases how the corporation’s DE&I goals are turning into actionable change as more women and people of color take on key leadership roles.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Hyatt’s second annual DE&I report provides progress on the corporation’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Under its Change Starts Here commitment, begun in 2020, it committed to increasing representation of women and people of color in leadership positions; hiring historically at-risk youth under its RiseHY program, which connects youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor going to school with career opportunities within the hospitality industry; and increase the amount of minority-owned suppliers across its hotels.

Today, Hyatt globally employs just over 105,000 individuals, 55.4 percent of which are men, 44.0 percent of which are women. In the U.S., gender distribution is a bit different, with women comprising the majority with 51.6 percent and men comprising 48.2 percent of all employees.

The percentage of women in leadership positions has grown since 2020, with 40.4 percent of all leadership roles employed by women. Additionally, 54.4 percent of all managers are women.

Across Hyatt’s U.S. employees, the number of people of color is increasing, too. Over sixty-five percent of all its colleagues, 52.1 percent of all of its entry-level managers and 40 percent of all of its managers are people of color. People of color are least represented among its leadership roles, with 26.5 percent.

Hyatt’s 2025 DE&I goal is to double the representation of women and people of color in key leadership roles.

“As part of our Change Starts Here commitments, we are committed to hiring, promoting and retaining diverse talent to reach our 2025 goal of doubling representation of women and people of color in key leadership roles, and to help ensure our leadership better reflects our broader company and the diverse communities in which we operate. In 2021, we were proud to make progress across these three areas,” said Margaret Egan, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Hyatt.

“Specifically, we saw an increase in representation across several key groups, including people of color in the U.S. workforce, and specifically, among our managers and leaders. We are continuing to build a pipeline and are proud to share that over 50% of our entry-level managers are people of color in the U.S. workforce,” Egan continued. “We’ve also partnered with MLT, the creators of the Black Equity at Work Certification, to support us in developing action-oriented plans that support all three of our commitments under Change Starts Here.”

Hyatt has also been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality” for the eighteenth year in a row.

Sustainability
With inspiration from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, Hyatt continues making progress in several different areas of sustainability, including climate change, water conservation, waste and circularity, responsible sourcing and helping destinations thrive.

As such, its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target was approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in November 2021, which helps corporations measure how fast and how much they need to reduce emissions to reach target goals that align with the most current data on climate change.

“Aligning with the SBTi is an important way to ensure that we are setting a meaningful carbon reduction target,” said Egan.

Hyatt’s 2030 goals are to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 27.5 percent from 2019 levels, reduce Scope 3 emissions by 53 percent per square meter and have 41 percent of its suppliers set science-based targets by 2025.

Scope 1 emissions are greenhouse gasses directly produced by a company, such as from furnaces or vehicles. Scope 2 emissions are those produced indirectly through heating, cooling or other methods. Scope 3 emissions are even more indirect, comprising emissions produced from employee commutes, business travel and more.

Last year, two hotels made the transition to all renewable energy production, the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam and the Hyatt Regency Phoenix.

Hyatt’s waste and circularity goal is to reduce food waste by 50 percent per square meter from 2019 levels by 2030. Its responsible sourcing goal is to source 100 percent cage-free eggs by 2025; in 2021, 57 percent of all eggs used across Hyatt properties in the U.S. were cage-free, 52 percent in Western Europe.

Many of Hyatt’s resorts and hotels are making change happen on an individual scale, like the Alila Villas Uluwatu, which created a Sustainability Lab to help decrease waste and repurpose it into useable items around the resort.

Social Welfare Initiatives
Hyatt also provided an update on its social welfare initiatives, including a new program just launched this July in collaboration with the American Hotels and Lodging Association (AHLA) to help victims of human trafficking, a unique challenge within the hospitality industry, both globally and domestically.

“No Room for Trafficking Survivors Fund” is an AHLA Foundation national awareness program that helps provide economic stability for survivors of human trafficking. It received a $500,000 donation from the Hyatt Hotels Foundation.

“Alongside the donation from Hyatt Hotels Foundation, a representative from the Foundation will serve as co-chair of the No Room for Trafficking Advisory Council, bringing together industry executive leaders to take action in driving forward their collective efforts to eradicate human trafficking and support survivors,” said Egan. “Together with survivors, the Council will set a framework for the ‘No Room for Trafficking Survivors Fund,’ as well as identify other areas of innovation and opportunity for the industry’s human trafficking prevention and awareness efforts.

All Hyatt colleagues around the world are also required to take Hyatt’s human trafficking training, which helps them identify possible human trafficking situations and how to respond to them.