The Hospitality Responsible Sourcing Coalition (HARP) is an industry initiative driven by EcoVadis, made up of a group of international hotel companies and their major global sourcing organizations: Accor, Hilton, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, Radisson Hotel Group, Endra and Entegra.
Richard Eyram, Chief Customer Officer at EcoVadis, explains: "By joining forces to enable more strategic focus and share best practices, HARP members and their best partners can focus on positive outcomes and help pave the way for their sustainability goals. ”
He added: "By joining HARP, leading hospitality organizations around the world are striving to do just that: by facilitating close collaboration with our partners, maximizing their collective efforts and accelerating sustainable practices, thereby building transparency and amplifying positive impact across the value chain." ”
Accelerate positive impact
The core focus of the alliance is to accelerate the positive impact of the industry as a whole by improving the sustainability performance of the best traders. This is done by Ecovadis as the Consortium Coordinator and its governance structure is overseen by each member's Chief Procurement Officer. They also establish specific working groups on specific sustainable procurement issues to help accelerate action as a collective force. HARP is a new way to measure and improve the sustainability performance of the chain, using EcoVadis' sustainability rating data pool to create a shared assessment methodology that enables participating companies to interact with their key suppliers and facilitates the exchange of expertise to help drive best practices in a unified manner.
For organizations that have traditionally competed for guests in the fierce global competition, aligning with each other for sustainable and responsible sourcing is a major achievement. For founding members, the appeal of being a member is that they know that as a unifying force, they are able to achieve greater goals without compromising their own business goals.
Early League Achievements
Since the establishment of the alliance, the seven founding members have invited more than 2,000 businessmen, and plan to invite more businessmen to join in 2024. Even in the early days of the project, its footprint was very broad, as the alliance represented 28,000 hotels around the world, 10,000 rooms, and more than 1.2 million employees. These are all achievements to celebrate, along with the fact that so many global industry leaders are pooling their collective resources for the benefit of sustainable procurement.
Richard Eyram, Chief Customer Officer at EcoVadis, explains: "Joining forces may not only be an accelerator, but also essential for the hospitality industry's sustainable ** chain transformation. "If vendors receive common information from the key industry players they offer products and services, the engagement process for transparency and improvement actions will be much more streamlined. ”
Paul Mcardle, Entegra's global chief operating officer, agreed, saying it sent a clear signal to procurement partners about expected progress and standards. "With so many global hospitality companies and their sourcing partners joining forces, we are able to send a cohesive message to the industry and accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices across the chain," he added. "It's not just a verbal commitment – we can work with our business partners to set clear, measurable goals and targets, and we can work together to achieve them and ultimately drive success. ”
This consistency accelerates progress thanks to unified messaging and intelligent data sharing. Patrick Mayhew, Senior Vice President of Strategic Sourcing at Endra, added: "By working together, we can improve sustainability across the hotel chain. "It allows all HARP members to assess and measure the environmental, human and ethical practices of our business through EcoVadis. ”
Linda Theisen, Hilton's Vice President of Management** for Hilton Americas, another founding member of the alliance, appreciated the value of the partnership. "We understand the importance of stakeholder collaboration to accelerate the positive impact on the global ** chain, and we are excited to work with our industry peers to drive responsible sourcing across the hospitality industry," she said. ”
Procurement is a key driver of change
The environmental impact of procurement and operations is an integral part of the sustainability strategy of all founding hotel members. Because of this, procurement is absolutely indispensable to the success of a broader business environment strategy. Caroline Tissot, Group Chief Procurement Officer at Accor, another founder, believes that projects like the Alliance are essential to bring about real change in the industry. "Innovation and solution-based initiatives that focus on core business activities are critical to achieving the vision of a sustainable future for the hospitality industry," she explains. "This partnership marks a crucial next step and Accor is very proud to be a part of it. ””
Groups like Marriott International have their own sustainability goals, but they know that their efforts to drive large-scale impact globally to reduce carbon, water, waste, and source-responsible products don't happen in a vacuum. "We believe it is very important for the entire hospitality industry to work together so that we can deliver on our strategic sustainability commitments. That's what we were all about when we co-founded HARP, because we believe that by working together to drive sustainable practices across the global chain, we can achieve results faster and more effectively. Stéphane Masson, their Senior Vice President of Global Procurement, explains.
The value of technology
It is clear that modern procurement techniques are essential to form the basis on which the alliance operates and seeks to achieve its goals. Richard Eyram from EcoVadis said: "EcoVadis' technology platform drives the expansion of all aspects of the sustainable procurement process – from risk management to impact reporting. "The EcoVadis rating methodology has been extended to more than 1250,000 companies scanning more than 100,000 news and stories with AI-powered 360-degree watches**.
Data tells a story, and the more data there is, the better the procurement experts can interpret that story. Paul Mcardle from Integra knows how important this technology is to achieve their desired results. "One of the key functions we rely on technology for is measurement, because we recognize that we can only achieve real change if we set measurable goals and work towards them. ”
Benefits for customers
As more and more merchants and members join the alliance and embrace the group's approach, the founding team feels the future is both bright and more sustainable, said Sopan Shah, senior vice president and chief procurement officer, IHG. "HARP is committed to increasing their maturity in the field over time by adding more sustainable vendors to the EcoVadis ecosystem and working with them to raise awareness of sustainability best practices to make a positive impact on a larger scale. Working with customers through the HARP Alliance, over time, merchants should also start to benefit from efficiencies in responding to their customers' sustainability requirements. This positive impact can also be shared among the businesses involved, the technology companies that make it possible, the vendors who interact with members, and the guests who use the service. "As we continue to drive positive impact, this partnership will undoubtedly bring unparalleled value to our merchants and our guests. Caroline Tissot, Chief Procurement Officer at Accor.
Our customers can take pride in knowing that they are helping to drive positive change towards the SDGs – and over time, the HARP Alliance can help accelerate the delivery of more sustainable and ethical products for hotels," Sopan Shah continued. Marriott International's Stéphane Masson agrees with this benefit for customers. "One of Marriott's core values is to serve our world. We are proud to be a founding member of HARP and help us meet the sustainable travel expectations of our customers and employees around the world. ”
Customers may not always know how the goods and services they enjoy are**, but the coalition is united in knowing that this is a program worth committing to for the good of the planet. "This may not always be what guests see, but this work is critical to the overall sustainability program, and the information gathered through the HARP and EcoVadis programs helps hotels make strategic decisions about the best vendors they use," said Patrick Mayhew, Senior Vice President of Strategic Procurement.