by Ann Withanee — December 9, 2011—What happens to bars of barely used soap when hotel guests leave? Normally they are thrown out. Not any longer. Now they have become part of a growing sustainability program. Hilton Worldwide recently announced a partnership with the Global Soap Project, a nonprofit organization that recovers and recycles soap from hotels that would otherwise end up in landfills. The Global Soap Project sorts, reprocesses and remolds used soap into new bars and distributes them to vulnerable populations in developing countries that are at risk of sanitation and hygiene-related disease. In its first year of the partnership, Hilton Worldwide expects this investment to result in the donation of more than one million new four-ounce bars of soap to people in need.
In addition to donating soap, Hilton Worldwide is investing $1.3 million over the next three years and providing its operational expertise to help expand the Global Soap Project’s processing capabilities. By leveraging Hilton Worldwide’s global supply chain and understanding of the hospitality industry, the partners will work to explore a social enterprise model and develop a global system that can handle the high volumes of soap generated by the sector, at zero cost to hotel properties. Hilton Worldwide will also assume a seat on the Global Soap Project’s Board of Directors and participate in the development of the organization’s strategy and growth.
Hand washing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which together are responsible for more than 3.5 million child deaths each year, points out Hilton. In contrast to North America, where more than two million partially used bars of soap are discarded at hotels every day, a lack of soap can be a barrier to hand washing at schools, community health clinics and refugee camps in developing countries, which rarely have soap or appropriate hand-washing facilities.
Since its inception in 2009, the Atlanta-based Global Soap Project has distributed more than 25 tons of soap to vulnerable communities in twenty countries on four continents, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, South Sudan, and Swaziland.
Hilton Worldwide is reportedly the first major multi-brand hospitality company to make sustainability measurement a brand standard across its portfolio of hotels: LightStay, Hilton’s proprietary sustainability measurement system, helps improve hotel performance and profitability while decreasing the company’s overall impact. Hilton Worldwide also recently earned ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications for quality and environmental management, one of the largest volume certifications awarded for commercial buildings.
