IHG and Ant Group's Partnership for Sustainable Tourism
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC
IHG Hotels & Resorts, one of the world's leading hotel businesses, has announced its participation in Ant Group's Green Energy Initiative to urge IHG One Rewards members in Greater China to use less single-use toiletries to safeguard the environment.
Through this collaboration, IHG urges IHG One Rewards members in Greater China who stay at participating IHG hotels to forego single-use items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, and soap.
By doing this, they can get 92 grammes of green energy from the Alipay Ant Forest mini-programme in the Alipay app 72 hours after checking out. According to the professional environmental organisation China Beijing Environmental Exchange (CBEEX), the measure results in a reduction of 92 grammes of carbon emissions.
Green energy points can be used to fund a variety of conservation programmes. If every IHG One Rewards member in Greater China took one such action each year, Alipay Ant Forest would receive 1,380 tonnes of green energy points. These green energy points can be used to grow 77,000 saxaul trees in desertification-affected areas. They can also be used to support other environmental projects.
Daniel Aylmer, Managing Director, IHG Greater China, said:
"Since we came to China 38 years ago, IHG Hotels & Resorts has been continuously reinforcing and enriching our brand portfolio while keeping up with the latest market trends, iterating our brands and services to meet ever-evolving customer needs. We are very pleased to work with Ant Group to offer innovative ways for responsible travel and promote green actions among our customers.”
Cheng Jiang, General Manager of Green & Social Good Department, Ant Group, said:
"We are excited to partner with IHG Hotels & Resorts to promote environmentally friendly actions through the Green Energy Initiative. Alipay Ant Forest's green energy points give our brand partners more ways to encourage their customers to do more green actions. We look forward to welcoming more partners from all sectors to join our journey.”
Alipay Ant Forest is a green project that started in 2016 and has more than 650 million participants. It encourages users to do things in their daily lives that use less carbon.
Green energy points can be earned by doing low-carbon things like riding a bike to work instead of driving and paying power bills online instead of in person.
These green energy points can be used to support projects like planting trees, protecting biodiversity, and restoring coastal ecosystems that are run by environmental groups and paid for by Ant Group.
The Green Energy Initiative, which includes green energy points in Alipay Ant Forest, is open to brands that want to provide greater incentives to their customers to take green actions. As of August 2022, more than 500 brands from a wide range of industries, such as travel, packaging, and home appliance manufacturing, have joined the project.
Source: IHG Hotels & Resorts
