Hilton Achieves Remarkable Milestone with Green Ramadan 2024, Reduces Food Waste by 20%

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Hilton has announced the results of its Green Ramadan 2024 initiative, which aimed to further reduce food waste across its hotel operations during the holy month. The initiative achieved a significant milestone, with a reduction of more than 20% in post-consumer food waste.

Building on the success of Green Ramadan 2023, where food waste was reduced by over 60%, the program was expanded to 32 hotels across seven countries, serving 239,000 guests during iftars and suhoors. Participating hotels in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Türkiye, and Malaysia engaged in extensive sustainability training. They focused on local sourcing, sustainable gastronomy, forensic waste management, and waste diversion through donation and composting where feasible. By adopting measures such as guest messaging, smaller portions, live cooking stations, artfully reduced food displays, and switching to à la carte menus, the campaign effectively raised food waste awareness with an educational and interactive approach.

Before launching this year’s initiative, hotel teams received comprehensive upskilling sessions and a food waste prevention playbook based on insights from Green Ramadan 2023. These preparations contributed to the 2024 campaign’s success, resulting in a 21% reduction in food waste over the month-long effort.

This reduction equated to avoiding more than 1.7 tonnes of food waste—enough to provide 4,300 meals. Additionally, over 7.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions were prevented, equivalent to 488,523 smartphone charges, as hotel guests were encouraged to adopt more sustainable habits during their stays. Commonly wasted items included bread, pastries, vegetables, and meats.

The campaign was a collaboration between Hilton, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) West Asia under the impactful Recipe of Change campaign, and Winnow, an AI-enabled food waste management solution. Alongside creating Green Ramadan tools to encourage sustainable behavior among guests, the participating hotels fostered effective working cultures, immersing front house and culinary staff in the campaign’s spirit.

Notes to Editors:

For more information about Green Ramadan 2024, please watch this video.

Thanks to the successful implementation of insightful interventions, the baseline data recorded in week one was 14% lower at 129 grams per cover than the data recorded at the end of Green Ramadan 2023, which resulted in 151 grams per cover of post-consumer waste. This was then reduced by a further 21%, resulting in 102 grams per cover at the end of the month-long effort.

Winnow estimates the average meal to be 400 grams. CO2e emissions are calculated by multiplying weight savings by 4.3, based on a blend of an FAO estimate of 4.6x and a WRAP estimate of 3.9x.

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