With our diverse lines of business and growing stakeholder groups, as we enter new markets, our challenge is to clearly identify and prioritise the issues most relevant to each stakeholder group in order to better inform our strategic decision making and CR reporting.

Our long term objective is to develop our stakeholder dialogue based on the framework outlined by the Accountability AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard. This will help us to align our actions and communications with the expectations of our stakeholders.

In 2008, we formed the CR Review Group chaired by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Frank Vanderpost, to ensure that our CR strategy is embedded within the operations framework of the business. The Group CR Director, Mohammad Al Ghaffari, reports directly to the COO who is a member of the Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) Committee with responsibility for CR. In addition, each property has a CR Champion who meets bimonthly at our CR Network meetings. 

Our CR performance is reported quarterly by the CEO of Jumeirah Group, Guy Crawford, to Jumeirah Group LLC Board of Directors through the Executive Chairman’s Committee. The CEO is ultimately accountable for the Group’s CR performance.

Key company policies for responsible and sustainable business practices are developed, reviewed and updated accordingly at corporate, regional and individual property levels to ensure continued alignment with the strategy. 

Our Board provides guidance based on global and local business environment, legal requirements and societal values. Board members also consider alignment of systems to Vision, Guiding Principles and Hallmarks, core company policies, defined authority levels and recommendations from specialist committees such as the Corporate Responsibility and Health & Safety Review Groups.

CR education through training is essential to bring cultural and behavioural change toward improving our CR performance.

In 2007, we launched our first internal and customised CR workshop aimed at senior and middle management. A total of seven customised workshops were conducted at Jumeirah Centre for Training and Development with attendance by over 100 management colleagues. We have also incorporated a CR chapter in our company induction programme and our colleague information handbook - Navigator. The chapter highlights the general concepts of CR as well as Jumeirah’s approach to CR for all new colleagues.

In addition, we encourage colleagues to attend various CR related workshops and seminars provided externally and at The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management.

Reporting

The final component of our approach to CR is our commitment to transparency by reporting back to stakeholders on our progress. Transparency is critical to our operations and achieved through the engagement activities outlined later in this Report, in addition to internal and external publications and communications that are part of the way we operate.

We are also committed to disclosing information on our global activities in increasing detail and will follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. To strengthen our CR Report, we will seek an independent assurance of the report. This requirement is stipulated in our CR Review Group Terms of Reference.