Our Policy
The Lancaster London places great importance in providing our guests with a delightful stay that exceeds their expectations. We provide a safe and inspiring environment for our employees. In addition, Corporate Social Responsibility is an integral part of Lancaster London’s vision ‘We Always Care’.
Working together with our stakeholders, suppliers, business partners, employees and our local community, we aim to reduce our impact on the environment and act responsibly towards our community and our industry.
Our Employees
We always care about our Colleagues:
We actively strive to achieve and maintain the Investors in People accreditation ensuring that best practice is maintained at all times.
We believe in providing a duty of care to our employees. We offer safe working conditions and we provide on-site occupational health for all our colleagues to utilise.
We carry out bi-annual engagement surveys to ensure that we are constantly re-assessing everything we do, and this allows us to develop and maintain the highest standards for our colleagues.
We encourage our colleagues to reduce their carbon footprint by offering benefits such as the ‘cycle to work scheme’ and season ticket loans.
We always care about developing our colleagues:
We have a wide variety of development opportunities for our colleagues, and a strong ethos of succession planning and developing talent within the business.
We offer our colleagues opportunities to develop themselves through nationally recognised qualifications such as CIMA, ACCA, MA, NVQ and ILM.
We offer a wide variety of Work Experience and Apprenticeship schemes to help develop those who are new into our industry and to allow them to gain the most out of their placement.
We always care about Equal Opportunities and Diversity:
We have a strong commitment as an Equal Opportunities Employer and actively monitor our equal opportunity status to ensure that we are acting in accordance with all legislation.
At the Lancaster London we have 52 different nationalities with over 30 different languages spoken.
Our Guests and Suppliers
We always care about engaging our guests in our initiatives.
We support two national charities per year by raising funds for their initiatives. We engage our guests to support these charities by asking them to donate £1 on their bill.
Guests are also able to offset their carbon footprint throughout their stay when booking on-line by opting to contribute towards a Carbon Offsetting Project.
We engage our guests by sending environmental messages through the television system such as asking them to reuse towels and bed linen.
The hotel has compiled a guest leaflet entitled ‘Conserving Our Resources’ this is a summary of the initiatives that the hotel has committed itself to do, to ensure our guests are informed regarding our green initiatives.
The Local Community
We always care about our local community
Lancaster London supports two local charities per year through money raised throughout the year from various activities including colleague events. This year the hotel is supporting:-
St. Mary's Hospital Paddington
This hospital is where guests and colleagues are brought to if taken ill whilst at the hotel. St. Mary's is particularly specialised in paediatric A&E and treat approximately 26,000 children per year. Lancaster London supports the hospital through regular fund raising and hosted a party for the Children's Ward patients and their families, organised by the Play Specialists at the hospital.
The Passage
London’s largest voluntary sector day centre for homeless people. The Passage helps more than 200 homeless and vulnerable men and women daily. They offer a wide range of services to maintain the self respect of homeless people and help them move towards a settled way of life. The Lancaster London supports the Passage by donating soap, bed linen and lost property to the charity.
We always care about charitable activities
Each year we choose hospitality industry charities to support. This year we are supporting the following charities:
Hospitality Action
This charity offers vital assistance to all those who work, or have worked within the hospitality industry in the UK and who find themselves in crisis. The charity supports individuals or families who have been or are suffering from life altering illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis or are experiencing poverty, bereavement and domestic violence. Money is raised to support these areas by:
- Issuing grants for essential items including food, clothing and central heating
- Supporting isolated and lonely retired hospitality workers
- Holding seminars via The Ark Foundation to tackle the excessive effects of drugs, alcohol and substance abuse for Industry students and employees
Springboard
Springboard encourages individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to work in the hospitality industry through various programmes. We actively support a wide variety of these programmes and invest time, expertise and money into the various Springboard initiatives.
We always care about fundraising events
Each year we complete festive displays to showcase in our Lobby. Displays have included a Gingerbread House and an Easter Chocolate display to raise money for our chosen charity of the year.
Our employees get involved in our charitable activities and complete various fundraising challenges. This year on the 17th May, may colleagues are abseiling from the roof of Lancaster London for Springboard!
Each year, we hold a Green Day for our colleagues. The aim is to inform, encourage and motivate our employees to participate in our green initiatives.
Environmental initiatives
We always care about our impact on the Environment.
Energy monitoring and reduction
The hotel's energy usage is monitored weekly, this ensures that the Engineering team are constantly aware of the hotel's energy consumption and can take appropriate action to achieve energy reduction. A number of energy reducing initiatives have been implemented, such as changing to LED lights, occupancy sensors and installing inverter units on pumps and motors. The hotel has set the energy consumption reduction target of 5% year on year. In 2013 the boilers will be changed and the plant replacement project will be started, which will ultimately decrease the energy consumption per year of the hotel. This is the first step towards our refurbishment project which will be starting next year and will be run throughout the hotel.
Water reduction
The hotel has installed water saving devices for the showers and basin taps; we have also introduced urinal sensors in the public toilets.
Waste reduction, recycling and reusing products
The hotel has achieved zero landfill by working together with our waste management company. All glass, paper, plastic, cardboard, cooking oil and all food are meticulously separated and recycled in our Loading Bay by a very rigorous and dedicated team. Recently, Lancaster London signed up with WRAP to their Hospitality and Food Service Agreement. This is a voluntary agreement to reduce the waste of food and packaging.
Pollution
We are mindful to only use water based paints for all our decoration works. We use the correct disposal procedure for all our electrical and electronic waste under the WEEE directive.
The CSR Team
The hotel has an enthusiastic CSR Team made up of representatives from all departments. The team meets on a monthly basis where the progress of hotel initiatives and future ideas are discussed and implemented.
Sustainability
The purchasing procedures at the Lancaster London support the hotel’s sustainable procurement strategy. This includes food, beverages and all products as far as reasonably possible.
Our Honey Bees
The Rooftop Honey Farm was a result of the green team initiative to support the urban honey bee population. The first hives were installed on the office roof in July 2009 and completed to our current ten in the summer 2010. The honey produced has been used by the chefs and is also given as gifts to guests and clients alike.
In October 2011 Lancaster London launched the first London Honey Show. This is now an established annual event at Lancaster London to promote awareness and best practise for how to look after bees. Awards are given for in five categories for honey and the coveted, Beekeeper of the Year award. The London Honey Show is supported by the London Beekeepers Association and Bee Craft, and is set to take place again this year on the 7th October 2013. If you would like to know more, please visit
www.londonbees.com.
Food mileage
Most food is sourced through local suppliers except where special products are required, for example in the traditional Thai Restaurant,
Nipa Thai.
The Lancaster London is mindful of the number of deliveries that are received each week, and is working towards eliminating all packaging waste in favour of reusable packaging for all deliveries.
The hotel cares for the well being of its employees by providing a well balanced diet in the Canteen, with choice of freshly prepared dishes using local produce.
Awards
We always care about environmental awards
We aim to enter environmental awards to ensure that we are constantly focusing on our green initiatives. Some of our achievements have been:
