Since the end of 2019, the luxury hotel group has been working with the international recycling programme that donates soap to organisations around the world while protecting the environment from harmful waste.
Continuously striving to reinforce its commitment to improve environmental impacts and support social initiatives is a key objective of Kempinski Hotels. To further expand the partnership with Clean the World, a leader in global health dedicated to sustainability around water, sanitation and hygiene, in the past six months more Kempinski hotels have joined the programme and the number continues to grow. Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group is committed to further enhance its activities in the field of recycling and helps to fight the spread of hygiene-related illnesses.
Clean the World’s hospitality programme takes discarded soap bars and bottled amenities and recycles them in order to protect the environment, preserve natural resources, help communities in need and to reduce costs. The seamless process starts with a housekeeping service collecting the used soap and amenities and sorting them into Clean the World-provided bins. Once full, the bins are shipped to one of six Clean the World warehouses, where the soap is then run through a special filtration process, whereby all debris is removed and filtered into ‘grind’. The grind is then mixed with a lab-tested sanitation solution and pressed into new soap bars. The bars are cut, packed and shipped to one of the many distribution partners around the world, including UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency), Children International, Global Medic, World Vision and the Red Cross, to name a few. From there, the bars are then put directly into the hands of vulnerable ones who so desperately need them.
“We are incredibly excited to be working with Clean the World, whose commitment to sustainability and continued support for impoverished communities around the world amplify our corporate social responsibility,” said Benedikt Jaschke, Chief Quality Officer and Member of the Kempinski Management Board. “At Kempinski Hotels, we strive to promote a sustainable future for our industry and assist in helping fight the global spread of preventable diseases. We look forward to continue building a strong partnership with Clean the World as we collectively work to raise awareness and support such an important cause which is even more vital as we face the current global pandemic.”
Commenting on the partnership, Shawn Seipler, Founder and CEO of Clean the World, said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with the luxury brand Kempinski Hotels. Their forward-thinking and corporate sense of responsibility to enhance their sustainability efforts to now include soap recycling speaks volumes about who they are as a brand. They are prioritising putting life-saving soap into the hands of people who need it, while also protecting the environment from harmful waste.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Clean the World has continued to work tirelessly to distribute over 3 million bars of soap to homeless shelters, food pantries, refugee camps and emergency healthcare facilities around the world. In the next 90 days, the organisation will distribute another 4 million bars of soap to the highest-risk and most vulnerable populations globally to help protect them from the spread of the deadly disease. Clean the World is calling on all hotels to recycle their soap rather than dispose of it, so they can help stop the spread of COVID-19 and prevent a future resurgence of the virus within vulnerable populations.
