Hilton’s Green Ramadan Initiative Reduces Food Waste by 21%

Hilton has announced the results of its Green Ramadan 2024 initiative, which aimed to further reduce food waste across hotel operations during the holy month. Through the effort, Hilton saw a more than 20% reduction in post-consumer food waste.

Following the success of Green Ramadan 2023 where food waste was reduced by over 60%, the programme was scaled across 32 hotels in seven countries and served 239,000 guests during iftars and suhoors. 

Participating hotels in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Türkiye and Malaysia undertook extensive sustainability training, and aimed to close the loop across the food value chain by focusing on local sourcing, sustainable gastronomy, forensic waste management, and diversion by donation and composting where possible.

By adopting interventions such as guest messaging, smaller portions, live cooking stations, artfully reduced food displays and switching to à la carte menus, the campaign was able to break through the food waste awareness barriers with an educational and interactive approach.

Prior to the launch of this year’s initiative, the hotel teams were given instructive upskilling sessions and a food waste prevention playbook based on the key learnings gained from Green Ramadan 2023. These insights contributed to the success of the 2024 campaign, with food waste being reduced by 21% over the course of the month-long effort.

This is equivalent to more than 1.7 tonnes of food waste being avoided – enough to provide 4,300 meals. More than 7.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions were also prevented, equating to 488,523 smartphone charges, as hotel guests were empowered to adopt more sustainable and eco-friendly habits over the course of their stays. Items observed to be most frequently wasted included bread and pastry, vegetables and meats. 

The campaign was launched as a collaboration between Hilton, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) West Asia under the impactful Recipe of Change campaign, and Winnow - an AI-enabled food waste management solution.

In addition to creating ‘Green Ramadan tools to ‘prime’ guests to adopt more sustainable behaviors, the participating hotels also fostered effective working cultures that immersed their wider teams — including front house and culinary staff — in the spirit of the campaign.