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Ana María López: Ilunion Hotels and the importance of people-centered sustainability

By: Xavier Martínez and Leire Erdociain

The students of Master's Degree at Personnel Management Service in Organizations shared with Ana María López, Sustainability Director at Ilunion Hotels, the importance of people-centered sustainability at their business.

Ilunion Hotels, all-inclusive hotels, is a unique business thanks to its shareholder, the group Social ONCE, is a nationwide business with more than 37,000 employees and more than 50 lines of business, including services, health, hotel and commercial, among others. Ilunion has 30 urban and holiday hotels, ranging from 3 to 5 stars, with more than 40% of its employees having disabilities. It is a business focuses on "real" diversity, that is, on the person as such, regardless of their characteristics - according to the director -.

In addition, Ilunion has special employment centers (CEE) with 12 hotels, where more than 70% of the people have disabilities. However, disability is not an obstacle for business, and in their hotels about half of the workers and part of the senior management are disabled. There is also a shared vision that they are not an NGO, they are a business.

For Ilunion, sustainability is not just an environmental issue, it is a transformational mindset and a comprehensive and transversal model of management . The first step in its director plan is to understand what sustainability really means and all that it implies. development To do this, the business asks itself how it can contribute to solving society's great challenges and bases itself on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a triple environmental, social and good governance dimension. Sustainability at Ilunion Hotels begins with listening to its stakeholders and its metaphor is that in order to think differently, one must learn to look with new eyes.

The objectives of the director plan include being responsible, delivering value and inspiring change. In this business, a great effort is made to have a strong environmental and social commitment. Being manager with the planet and people, working with a approach to prevent, manage and repair the negative environmental impacts it may cause. To this end, it carries out exhaustive diagnostic analyses in each of its hotels to prevent these impacts and, when it is not possible to avoid them, it works to minimize and reduce them. In addition, it also makes an effort to make its customers aware of the importance of sustainable behavior. To this end, it has a strategic environmental plan that demonstrates its commitment to the environment.

On the other hand, this business also has a social commitment to people and the community. According to agreement with Llano (2000), "A business that does not have as mission statement the development of the people - of the people who compose it or of the people it serves - cannot be called great, no matter how surprising its products are and how striking its achievements are". Therefore, the business is working to promote the flourishing and fulfillment of its employees and society at large. To this end, they are working with a proprietary model called "Our Way", which puts people at the center and focuses on vulnerable people. The business has identified 17 categories of vulnerability, and 319 vulnerability factors have been identified in 192 people. 55.21% of this vulnerable group are people with disabilities, and 22% are people with certificate Official Risk of Social Exclusion. In addition, this business strengthens its links with society, understanding that its hotels are schools of sustainability. In other words, a reflection of a new pact between business and society, and a commitment to improve society. The great challenges for society are the objectives of sustainable development , and it is important not to fall into the silence of the good guys. According to Martin Luther King, "I am not concerned about the cry of the violent, the corrupt, the dishonest, the unethical. What worries me most is the silence of the good". Therefore, it is important to remember that we can all change the world, we have more power than we think. So, do you think you can change the world, what are you waiting for?

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