AT THE HEART OF SKYCITY’S BUSINESS LIES A COMMITMENT TO CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR). WE ARE COMMITTED TO SHOWING LEADERSHIP IN THIS AREA.
At SkyCity, we recognise that sustainability is critical to all levels of our business and operations. Part of being a responsible business is understanding the impacts arising from our operations. The aim of this understanding is to enable positive impacts to be fostered and negative impacts to be at the very least mitigated and ideally abated. This is particularly true when there is potential for harm to either people or the environment.
At SkyCity, we need to continually focus on our social licence to operate - as, in the casino industry, we have to try harder than most to justify our place in society. SkyCity is committed to maintaining the highest levels of sustainability objectives and practices, with priority given to minimising the impacts associated with problem gambling as an area of primary focus.
Our sustainability initiatives are focused on doing good for our customers, our employees, our communities, our suppliers and our environment. Our objective is to ensure that our strategic decisions strengthen the communities we operate in and provide environments and opportunities for our customers, suppliers and staff to enjoy, to be entertained and to be safe.
Here are our six CSR pillars:
Claire Walker
Chief People and Culture Officer
FROM LANDFILL TO BECOME COMPOST AT SKYCITY AUCKLAND IN FY18
THROUGH INSTALLATION OF LED LIGHTS AT SKYCITY AUCKLAND
BY SKYCITY COMMUNITY TRUSTS SINCE 1996
ON MAIN GAMING FLOOR IN AUCKLAND WITH NEW DEDICATED CUSTOMER SERVICE AMBASSADORS
We are proud to be recognised for the contributions we make to the community, the ongoing development of our staff and as industry leaders.
At our core, SkyCity is a provider of casino entertainment. The promotion of responsible gaming and safe consumption of alcohol are topics at the heart of our business.
We take our responsibilities to minimise risk and harm from problem gambling very seriously.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Deployed facial recognition technology across all SkyCity's land-based casinos to assist in identifying excluded customers
Commenced operation of a predictive algorithm risk model at the SkyCity Hamilton casino to assist in identifying players who may be at risk from gambling harm by analysing loyalty data
Implemented 'Live View' system technology at the SkyCity Auckland and SkyCity Hamilton casinos to assist in identifying continuous play on electronic gaming machines
Increased host responsibility training for SkyCity Auckland Customer Service Ambassadors - a front line customer service team whose role is to engage and build rapport with customers with an emphasis on host responsibility
The SkyCity Auckland and SkyCity Hamilton casinos participated in Gambling Harm Awareness Week in New Zealand - with treatment and public health stakeholders stationed within the casino environs to create awareness of problem gambling and access to support and treatment networks.
As a major employer with over 3,800 staff, we know that taking care of our people is the key to creating a great place to work. We are committed to providing our employees with sustainable career paths at SkyCity and want our staff to grow their careers with us.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Launched 'SkyCity FLEX', a new flexible working framework
Held the SkyCity Diversity and Inclusion Conference, attended by 170 people leaders from across the SkyCity business
Sponsored the 2019 Rainbow Excellence Awards
Awarded the 2019 Rainbow Tick Training and Development Award for SkyCity's Transition Support Framework, a transgender employee framework and tool kit
Finalist in the 'Employer of Choice' category at the 2019 New Zealand Tourism Awards
Announced as a Platinum winner in the 'Best Learning and Development Project - Leadership Capability' category at the 2019 LearnX Asia Pacific Awards for SkyCity's Tahuna Te Ahi programme
Launched refreshed employee values
Developed and implemented employee pulse surveys
Continued to focus on improving our health and safety performance against our four health and safety goals set out in our Group Health and Safety Strategy for 2019-2021
Our aim is to create value in our business and in the communities in which we operate.
We understand that to do this we need to engage meaningfully with our communities, listen to their critical needs and expectations, and respond through developing meaningful community partnerships and by taking action to address key issues in our operations.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Helped to raise more than $325,000 for Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand through the Step Up Sky Tower Stair Challenge
Contributed a total of $3.7 million to the four New Zealand SkyCity Community Trusts for distribution to communities in the Auckland, Waikato, and Queenstown Lakes regions - of which $1.9 million was distributed in the financial year ended 30 June 2020, including $1 million in an extraordinary grant round by the SkyCity Auckland Community Trust to four organisations focused on reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their communities
Welcomed the 50th young person into Project Nikau, SkyCity's youth employment programme focused on offering employment, training and a career path to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds
Continued our sponsorship of First Foundation, the Gateways Programme and TupuToa as part of SkyCity's ongoing commitment to youth employment
We can leverage our relationships with other organisations to promote positive outcomes in areas of impact such as anti-corruption, responsible political advocacy, fair competition and promoting social and environmental responsibility in our supply chain.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Agreed and commenced delivery of a 24-month Ethical and Responsible Sourcing Strategy Roadmap
Presented SkyCity's ethical sourcing strategy to the New Zealand Climate Leaders Collation in October 2019
Finalist in the 2020 New Zealand CFO Awards for 'Finance Team Contribution to ESG Initiatives'
Announced our commitment to only use cage free eggs across our New Zealand sites by September 2020 (delayed due to COVID-19)
Focused on utilising local suppliers for the SkyCity Adelaide expansion project
Developed a Modern Slavery Statement
Implemented technology to enable greater analysis of procurement spend
We are dedicated to growing in a sustainable manner with a commitment to environmental sustainability as a foundation for successful economic, social and cultural development.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS:
SkyCity New Zealand is officially Carbon Neutral, a key milestone in our long-term climate change journey.
To become carbon neutral, SkyCity has measured its total New Zealand emissions, 10,119 tonnes of carbon (tCO2e) and 2,747 (tCO2e) in flights and has offset these emissions by purchasing carbon credits from Enviro-mark Solutions at a total cost of $86,938.
The carbon credits will go towards significant international projects, funding a solar farm in India and solar cooktops for 48,000 households in China.
But offsetting is only a small part of our on-going sustainability journey.
SkyCity is the first Oceania hospitality business to set science-based targets to help keep the rise in global temperatures to well below 2°.
We are working hard to achieve these science-based targets and have reduced our scope 1 and 2 emissions from energy use by 13% with a target of 38% by 2030.
To achieve our climate ambitions, SkyCity have set up a Green Fund, sourced from an internal carbon levy of $25 per tonne of carbon we emit, paid for by our precincts in Auckland, Hamilton and Queenstown. The proceeds will go to both offset our carbon emissions and towards the Green Fund, to fund emission reduction projects around the SkyCity business
SkyCity employees are also encouraged to offset their personal carbon footprint, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar by SkyCity to go into the Green Fund.
To further highlight our commitment, the Sky Tower lights have been turned off until mid-December, to be replaced with LED light bulbs which will reduce energy consumption by 10%
Here are the projects we have undertaken in FY19 that make a considerable impact to our emissions, as well as the environment and community
Waste sent to landfill has been reduced by 21% since 2015
SkyCity has donated 379kgs of food in FY19
314 tonnes of food that couldn’t be donated was commercially composted
The SkyCity Auckland Casino has been optimised to significantly reduce energy consumption – saving the equivalent of the annual average emissions of 12 households so far.
Plastic straws have been removed from SkyCity in the past year. SkyCity Queenstown were the first to make the change and now only plant-based straws can be found at any SkyCity precinct.
We are saving on single use plastic bottles in our hotels, conventions and in some of our restaurants by offering wine and beer on tap
Lights in our Hamilton car park are now LED
We have upgrading our chillers in the Auckland mainsite to be more energy efficient
Our Moo2Shampoo scheme means all hotel amenities in our Auckland hotels are made from recycled SkyCity milk bottles