Our year at a glance….

Our ‘all electric’ hotel

In 2022, we started construction of our first ‘all electric’ Premier Inn hotel in Swindon town centre.

The fivestorey, 195-bedroom hotel is the first Premier Inn to be designed without a connection to a natural gas supply.

Instead, it will be fully heated and powered by grid energy generated from renewable sources and by on-site photovoltaic cells.

A suite of energy and heat recovery systems, including air source heat pumps and a new water heating technology, will also be included in the thermally efficient hotel building. We look forward to opening this in the coming financial year.

The Royal Society for theProtection of Birds

Working with the RSPB, we have looked at ways in which we can enhance wildlife as part of planned garden refurbishments. At two trial sites, we have looked for opportunities to improve the design of the gardens both for nature and for our guests.

From bird boxes to bug hotels to butterfly banks, and from native spring bulbs to wildflowers, the RSPB has provided advice and suggestions to help our gardens act as ‘pockets’ of habitat that connect with the wider landscape. Signs, trails and games will help ensure guests of all ages can enjoy the garden and hopefully spot the signs of some interesting visitors, such as hedgehogs or owls.

Green Bond for future resilience investments

The £550 million bond supports green development, operation and procurement. Since 2021, we have allocated £504 million across the following projects:

Green construction: £234 million Investment and expenditure relating to the properties built to, fitted out to, or operated to BREEAM standards (Very Good and above), LEED (Platinum) or EPC (B or above), leading to seven sites being built to high environmental standards as above

Green operation: £234 million Expenditure relating to purchase of renewable energy across the estate and reduction in waste to landfill, via recycling Renewable energy, pollution prevention and control leading to 64,810 tonnes of CO2e emissions being avoided

Sustainable procurement: £36 million 100% of fixtures and fittings, timber and paper consumables suppliers that comply with our timber policy 100% of all allocated consumables and fish being sourced to internationally recognised sustainability standards

Moving forward
The SFSC will now allocate the remaining £46m of the Green Bond to eligible projects within the Framework. Full details on our allocation, case studies, impact and assurance can be found in our Green Bond Allocation and Impact Report

Community engagement

We have been working with Project Art Works since 2018. This is a Sussex-based charity, providing art as a form of therapy for those living in the community with complex needs.

Starting as an art loan scheme, this project has grown over the years, and we are incredibly proud that Project Art Works artworks are now part of every Premier Plus room across the UK and Germany.

This year we have added two artists to the collection and have artwork in display in over 4,000 rooms. We have committed to continuing to work with the charity as we roll out the pipeline of Premier Plus rooms. In each Premier Plus bedroom, guests will find a plaque alongside the artwork, providing information about Project Art Works and the artist.s

Practical wellbeing support for our teams

Many of our wellbeing initiatives this year have combined physical, mental and financial wellbeing.

We have a new Occupational Health provider, Health Partners Group, which will support the occupational needs of our team and will also provide expert wellbeing support and guidance. This combines access to expert occupational health advice and clinical services with smart systems for our team members.

Over 2,000 line managers completed online learning modules, helping them to identify issues and support their teams’ and their own wellbeing.

We created nine ‘Wellbeing short-take’ videos available to all our teams across our sites and Support Centres, and digital bitesize books on Stress and Anxiety, Winter Wellbeing, Kindness and Consideration, The Power of Habits, Resilience and Self Care.

We have continued regular communications through our ‘Wellbeing Wednesday’ initiative, a drumbeat of wellbeing information throughout the year. Our online Wellbeing Hub is available to all our teams and hosts all wellbeing resources – including all our training materials, books, videos and links to other external support.

Building careers through apprenticeships

We offer apprenticeships in our Operations and Support Centre, giving people the opportunity to gain nationally recognised qualifications, from entry level to Foundation Degree, and develop their skills in role or to train towards their next position.

With our ‘no barriers to entry’ approach, we have an apprenticeship available for every operational role. This has enabled us to rebuild the number of apprentices in Operations postpandemic, using our levy efficiently and supporting operational talent pipelines for the future. Our recent evaluation highlighted that 46% of completing apprentices have gone on to be promoted or take on extra responsibilities within a year of completing their apprenticeship.

Over the last year, we have increased the number of apprenticeships available in our Support Centres, allowing our people to increase their technical knowledge and gain a qualification to recognise their skills, in areas such as Customer Service, Project Management and HR.

We are proud to have been recognised for our work on apprenticeships, including being listed as a Top 100 Employer (number 30) by the Department of Education; No. 1 in Hospitality by Rate My Apprenticeship; and Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Employer of the Year 2022 at the Multicultural Apprentice Awards

Working with Stop the Traffik on supply chain risk

We have worked with Stop the Traffik over a number of years to help protect the human rights and working rights of the workers in our supply chain. This includes an assessment of risk by country of operation and their industrial sector. The work helps to inform our audit strategy and we work with external consultants to run audits across our supply chain.

We work to a SMETA 4 pillar audit, covering human rights and some environmental issues. We strive for ‘engagement over audit’, so where non-compliances is found, we work with our suppliers to create a roadmap and corrective action plan to ensure that they reach a suitable level of compliance.

In 2022/23, we undertook a Companywide human rights impact assessment, in partnership with Stop the Traffik. Reviewing both our business operations and value chain across the UK and Germany and also our joint venture partner. The analysis identified the most salient human rights risk that we face, along with a series of recommendations to align with best-practice mitigation. Taking these results, we have begun a gap analysis comparing our existing policies, processes and critical control points with industry benchmarks and identifying potential areas for improvement. We aim to complete this in the coming months and work to close any gaps identified during the remainder of the year.