Food waste: Tech supporting Accor Hotels

Measurement is Key

This massive F&B supply chain represents 17 percent of Accor’s overall carbon footprint, 40 percent of its water usage, and 80 percent of its impact on land use and biodiversity. Accor’s sustainability efforts help minimize this impact. Indeed, Accor encourages its properties to measure their food waste because reduction can only be achieved through precise measurement. To accurately quantify food waste and comply with shared standards, each property is encouraged to measure its waste using Gaïa, an online reporting tool integrated to Accor hotels. This technology-based solution makes it easier for hotels to measure and monitor their energy, water, waste and carbon footprint performance, so that they can accurately track the impact of their sustainability initiatives. To date, 93% of the Group’s affiliate, managed and franchised hotels, spread across +5,600 properties, have adopted this platform to measure their energy and water consumption.

The Role of AI

Accor has long been committed to transforming the way it works and to supporting hotels to improve their extra-financial performance and offer guests sustainable and desirable experiences. To go even further, Accor is a committed member of the WRAP EU (ex-International Food Waste Coalition), which is working to define and implement a methodology and targets for measuring and reducing food waste at an industry level. Secondly, it is essential to roll out working, reporting and analysis methods based on a rigorous scientific approach. To achieve this, Accor is now leveraging the latest technological advances in Artificial Intelligence. Thanks to these two levers, the Group aims to exceed its targeted 50% reduction in food waste by 2030.

On average, almost 20 tons of food waste are generated per hotel each year, accounting for around 43% of a hotel’s total waste. While 45% of food waste in hotels comes from processing and excess preparation, 34% is due to food left on plates. The remaining 20% is the result of poor inventory management.

Accor has joined forces with three start-ups that leverage Artificial Intelligence to accelerate its transformation: to help reduce waste at source, 200 pilot programs have been launched in properties that generate significant F&B sales.

Since 2016, Winnow Vision has been scanning and visually recognizing surplus food to obtain detailed data on its quantity and type, enabling teams to adjust menus and reduce food waste. The solution is currently being used in more than 180 properties, including at Fairmont Jakarta, which has reduced its food waste by 16% (1.6 tons) in a single year, and Novotel London Excel, which has reduced waste by 39%, a reduction of12 tons.

Using Artificial Intelligence, Orbisk, a startup awarded the Accor Challenge at Viva Technology 2021, scans leftover food to obtain clear data on the amount and type of food being thrown away, helping to adjust menus and thus reduce waste. This has been used at Sofitel The Palm in Dubai, which has reduced its food waste by 13% in five months, corresponding to 3 tons annually, and Novotel Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, which has cut its waste by 35%, the equivalent of 8 tons over two years.

Lastly, Fullsoon is an AI-powered predictive restaurant management startup helping Accor chefs to adopt more sustainable ingredients and to clearly indicate the carbon impact of the meals on restaurant menus.

This start-up emerged from our intrapreneurship program launched by the Innovation Lab. Through this initiative, Accor enabled a Group employee to devote 100% of his time to bringing his idea to life, financing his project and creating his start-up before ultimately leaving the Group so that Fullsoon could take off.

Sharing best practices for positively influencing the behavior of employees – and particularly chefs – is another point of action. The Group has designed specific training modules for its kitchen teams on the topic of food waste. Improving customer awareness of the need to combat food waste is also an essential daily task for our teams: interacting, raising awareness and embarking on our journey to encourage them to adopt more responsible habits.

Advancing Sustainability & Resource Management

As AI adoption grows, so does its environmental impact. Accor is committed to leveraging AI responsibly. AI plays a critical role in optimizing energy consumption, water usage, and food waste reduction, aligning with Accor’s sustainability goals. However, the growing reliance on AI raises concerns about data center energy consumption, with projections showing AI could account for 10% of global data center energy use in the coming years. Balancing AI-driven innovation with environmental responsibility remains a priority.