Our Sustainability & CSR Charter and how we are achieving our goals

Apex have 10 Pillars of Sustainability to support the business.

1. Employee Wellbeing

The Apex Family values of Trust, Friendliness, Passion and Teamwork are at the heart of everything we do. We participate in the Best Company’s Survey every year that allows our employees to feedback in a survey on 8 Key elements of our business. These include My Manager, Leadership, Personal Growth, Giving Something Back, My Team, Wellbeing, My Company & Fair Deal. By being completely anonymous employees can feel safe in the knowledge that they can speak the truth and that they are helping the future growth and development of our business. We are proud to say that 2021 saw the achievement of 2 Star status which indicates outstanding levels of employee engagement. We have a variety of health and safety policies and training programs to ensure we have a safe and positive working environment for our team members, these are continuously monitored and updated. We work to promote a healthy lifestyle for our staff and provide information on wellbeing activities and support groups; whilst on duty we ensure that all staff are provided with healthy and nutritional meals.

2. Communication

We encourage our employees to think green. We have Green Teams in our hotels & in our Support Centre who are working towards making our hotels more sustainable and we want to share with our customers all that happens within the Apex Family. We encourage great suggestions for improvements and have a feedback process to embrace new ideas. We have introduced an Annual Apex Sustainability Award to recognise the efforts of an individual or team who have gone above and beyond.

3. CSR & Community Project

Our employees have voted for the nominated charities for 2021/2022. They are The Wildlife Trusts and Mental Health UK. Hotels also individually support more local charities with donations, team events and initiatives throughout the year. We’re dedicated to making a positive contribution to the communities in which our hotels operate and to creating a better future. We support the social and economic development of local communities through providing employment and training opportunities, including youth and trainee programmes. We work with local businesses through sourcing and consolidating deliveries on environmentally friendly and high-quality local products, by doing this we avoid unnecessary transport emissions and we also ensure our suppliers adopt positive environmental practises. Social engagement is also critical, we support a variety of community projects and events, whether they are big or small.

We’ve got a companywide fundraising commitment and each year we get behind our chosen charities, and our staff up and down the UK take on incredible fundraising challenges to raise money for worthy causes.

4. Nature & Culture

We have recently partnered with Trees for Life to establish Apex Grove in the Scottish Highlands. Apex City of Bath has been ear marked for a project in 2021 to make a more sustainable use of its roof space. This is being done in collaboration with Bath University.

5. Waste Management ‘Reduce Reuse Recycle’

We use recycled paper where we need a printed copy. Our invoices are received electronically, and we have recently introduced a paperless check-in process for our guests. Our housekeeping team have switched from paper to the use of an app for shared room information for arrivals stays and departures. We have also switched our in-room information and menus to QR codes to reduce our use of paper. We have procedures in place for waste items such as used uniform and used bedding. Our backdoor waste is split into four categories, General waste, Mixed recycling, glass and food waste. Our target is to increase our recycling at source to 50% of our total waste. No products go to landfill, our general waste is collected and turned into RDF (refuse derived fuel). We recycle our Nespresso coffee capsules. Our waste oil is collected and turned into renewable energy. We pledge to eliminate single use plastics in our room amenities by 2022, by doing this we will take over 700,000 single use plastics from our waste system.

6. Water Usage & Conservation

We have self- closing taps in our public area, reducing our water use. We have a reuse towel policy in the bedrooms which aims to reduce water and energy consumption and allows guests to choose the balance of being green and staying clean. We have dual flush toilets in our bedrooms. We have target reductions of water use per occupied room and in our spa facilities.

7. Energy Efficiency & Conservation

We are trialling an IOT/Smart building initiative with the introduction of smart room and public area sensors to help us reduce our energy use and move quickly to a more favourable carbon position. Having Energy Saving Key cards in bedrooms means rooms don’t use energy when unoccupied. 95% of our lighting is LED with a target of 100% by 2023

8. Ethical Procurement & Supply Chain

Apex Hotels expects its suppliers to comply with all applicable environmental laws and to actively and continually take steps to reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint.

In sourcing our goods and services the procurement team will maintain sustainable and socially responsible procurement that considers the implications of CSR & Sustainability in all tender evaluations.

Some key considerations include

Sourcing local goods and from local suppliers where possible

Avoiding environmental damage and sourcing products and produce that do not affect biodiversity in their production

Selecting goods with low environmental impact

Using suppliers and contractors who adhere to strict environmentally friendly practices

Purchasing Fairtrade products where possible

Consolidating purchases to reduce delivery frequency and carbon footprint

9. Travel & Transport

We participate in the Cycle2work initiative. We encourage use of public transport for employees and customers. Our hotels are situated in city centres close to transport links which makes it very easy for guests to travel by train , bus or tram

10. Management of Best Practice

We ensure compliance with all relevant legislation in the ‘Race to Net Zero’ This is a long-term project and we are working towards a Net Zero Target. We have a project team in place to understand & safeguard the behaviours & investment needed in the next 5,10 & 15 years ensuring the plans & actions required are being executed to preserve the needs of our future generations

We have a twice-yearly review and audit of our policy and react to any legislation changes.