Banyan Group: Leading decarbonisation transformation for hotels, hospitality and food

70% of emissions narrowed down to 5 hotspots

Banyan Group, an internationally renowned hospitality brand founded in Singapore in 1994, is one of the world’s leading independent, multi-branded hospitality groups centered on the purpose-driven mission of stewardship and wellbeing while offering exceptional, design-led experiences. With 70 resorts and hotels spanning across diverse landscapes in Asia, America, Africa, and the Middle East, Banyan Group's commitment extends beyond its guests. Rooted in the core value of “Embracing the Environment, Empowering People”, the brand has always championed sustainable development. To build a granular understanding of their emissions footprint and plan reduction initiatives, Banyan Group partnered with Terrascope as their platform of choice for end-to-end decarbonization.

The Problem

Banyan Group's vast expanse, encompassing 76 entities in 20 nations across Asia, America, Africa, and the Middle East, introduced complexities when it came to emissions management. A staggering 130K line-items spread across these properties, all of which demanded meticulous scrutiny concerning emissions. Banyan Group was also undertaking the measurement exercise for the first time, so materiality assessments of their operations in terms of tabulating pertinent data had to be built in the absence of a centralized system for emissions data. Furthermore, with the impending need for alignment with Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) reporting, a precise understanding of their Scope 3 emissions became imperative.

The Terrascope Solution

The Terrascope platform streamlined Banyan Group’s complicated data with over 130K activity-items into manageable groups of a little over 2K line items. Through AI-powered EF matching, the Terrascope platform measured emissions of these line items and categorized them across emissions scopes. Terrascope also built a granular view of emissions across Banyan Group’s value chain, including:

• Hotspot identification of key areas, business units or activities with the highest emissions, enabling targeted mitigation strategies.
• Emission distribution benchmark of Banyan Group against its peers in the hotel industry, offering insights into its performance relative to the industry standard.
• Enhancement of GHG Data Measurement for completeness, accuracy, and consistency.

The Terrascope platform also identified that the top 5 activities contributed to over 70% of all emissions, with electricity being the highest, followed by food.

Top 5 activities contribute to 70% of overall emissions

Apart from granular measurements, the Terrascope platform also provided an extensive materiality assessment for hotel operations, property assessments, and other business units, along with guidance on data collection to ensure seamless emissions measurement in the future.

Consumption vs emissions contribution

Lastly, the Terrascope platform extrapolated satellite data and Banyan Group's site-specific information to calculate the extent of tree cover loss and the resulting emissions during the year of the company's establishment and throughout a 20-year timeframe. This analysis assessed Banyan Group's Land Use Change (LUC) impacts, as required by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). It was validated that the LUC constituted less than 1% of Banyan Group’s total emissions, thereby confirming its immateriality for the company for further reporting.

Visualisation of cover loss and emissions