MGM Resorts unveils SDG-aligned sustainability strategy

MGM Resorts employs more than 80

Called ‘Focused on What Matters’, the strategy contains an array of 2025 and 2030 targets across four key pillars: protecting the planet; caring for one another; investing in community and fostering diversity and inclusion.

On the first of these pillars, MGM Resorts has committed to reducing carbon emissions per sq ft by 45%, energy use per sq ft by 25% and water per square ft by 30% by 2025, against a 2018 baseline.

The Las-Vegas-based company is additionally aiming to divert 60% of its waste footprint by weight, taking in operational and construction waste, from landfill within the same timeframe.

These targets will apply across all 30 of MGM Resorts’ brands, which include the likes of Bellagio, Delano and MGM Grand.

On the social side of sustainability, MGM Resorts’ new strategy includes ambitions to donate five million meals’ worth of surplus food to those in need and to award 600 scholarships to children of employees by 2025.

It additionally details commitments to deliver one million cumulative employee volunteering hours and to ensure that systemic barriers currently preventing staff from marginalized socio-economic groups from accessing leadership opportunities are broken down.

Each of the commitments in the strategy was developed in partnership with the UN Global Compact which, with the addition of MGM Resorts’ membership, now takes in 9,953 companies hailing from 161 countries. As such, MGM Resorts claims they are entirely aligned with the 17 Global Goals.

“As a company with a global presence and more than 80,000 employees worldwide, MGM Resorts recognizes our responsibility extends beyond simply serving our customers and growing our bottom line,” MGM Resorts’ chairman and chief executive Jim Murren said.

“Focused on What Matters elevates and builds upon our work and investments in responsible leadership and provides a roadmap for making the most meaningful, enduring impact possible.”

MGM Resorts is one of many companies to use to Global Goals as a sustainability framework, with this cohort of businesses having grown after research revealing that as much as $12trn and 380 million jobs could be generated by 2030 if the SDGs are placed at the heart of global economic strategies.

Other businesses to have unveiled SDG-aligned strategies in recent months include the likes of cement and building materials giant Cemex, coffee roaster Lincoln & York, alcoholic beverage firm Pernod Ricard and OVO Energy.  

Sarah George