Staycity’s strategy for a green future
June 14, 2023 3:09pm
Share: 
During 2020 and 2021, our business, and the hospitality industry in general, took (and continues to take) a huge hit from Covid. We have worked hard to survive, and recover, from the massive blow to our business. If one good thing came from it, it was to bring us face to face with the power of nature, and to make us understand that we need to put nature at the centre of everything we do from now on. During this year, 2021, our management team, with the assistance of expert external advisors, developed our ESG strategy and high-level roadmap. We’re taking risks with this strategy, including setting targets which push us to the edge of what’s possible in the industry. That being said, our whole team is delighted that we’ve decided to push the envelope, and we are reinvigorated at the prospect of driving ourselves to meet Science Based Targets aligned with achieving the 1.5C goal, as set out in the Paris Agreement and further confirmed at COP26.
The three pillars of our ESG strategy are Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health and Wellbeing, and Waste Management. We considered the UN Sustainable Development Goals throughout the process of developing our strategy, and have identified thirteen separate workstreams, with short, medium and longer term goals, out to 2030. We understand that taking action now is crucial, and that what we achieve in this decade, defines the world we leave for our children. Every day matters, so we have appointed an ESG Director to steer us onto our new path. We are not leaving the difficult work to the end but starting now, and phasing in a new approach to business which we call Stay Green. Stay Green will change the way we build and operate our Staycity and Wilde apartments, starting today.
We are an honest company and know that honesty, and also transparency, need to be the deep foundation upon which we build Stay Green. We are currently in the process of measuring and documenting all of our energy, carbon, water and waste, usage and emissions. We are documenting both what we are directly responsible for, through the operation of our buildings, and what we are indirectly responsible for, through the purchases we make, including the buildings we build. Through Stay Green we will rapidly lower the carbon footprint of the buildings we build, along with significantly reducing their carbon footprint, as they operate. We will move to full renewable electric operation including maximising onsite electricity generation. Stay Green will incorporate a whole new approach to how we address climate change, how we use water, how we avoid pollution, how we make habitat for endangered species, and how we move away from a disposable economy to a circular economy.
We are absolutely committed to aligning our business to the 1.5C pathway, and during 2022 we will deliver approved, Science Based Targets, backed up by clear, detailed action plans. Through this process we will understand the level of carbon offsetting required, and will align with trusted organisations to deliver quality offsets, once we have done everything we could to reduce and eliminate what we control or influence.
We pledge to do all of this, and to help our customers see what we are doing, by disclosing our progress so that others can verify our claims. This decade will be a decade of transformation. We expect the path to be difficult, and we know we won’t get it right sometimes, but we are now on our way. Please join us.
Tom Walsh
CEO Staycity