Sustainability and Strategy - HILTON HOTEL Essay

Sustainability and Strategy - HILTON HOTEL - Essay Example Hilton hotels across the globe are owned by or managed by individual operators and who are supervised by Hilton Worldwide. As of 1943, the Hilton hotels business chain became the United States’ first coast to coast hotel chain. Currently, there are more than 530 Hilton branded hotels operating worldwide in 78 countries, serving the interests of millions of people. As the company engages in large scale operations, it evidently produces huge volume of waste materials. The company’s waste dumping activities raise potential challenges to the environmental sustainability policies of the United Kingdom. This paper will conduct a PEST analysis on the waste issue of Hilton hotels; and it will critically evaluate how each PEST element relates to the successful management of the company. Pest analysis on the waste issue of Hilton Hotels Political factors The waste issue of Hilton Hotels in UK involves many political aspects. Evidently, the entire European Union maintains strict r egulations on waste disposal with intent to confront with the challenging environmental crises such as global warming and green house effect (United Nations Environment Programme, 2002, p.25). Recently, the UK government in particular has framed an array of environment sustainability policies so as to preserve the ecological balance. ... Hence, the government is less likely to adopt a liberal approach towards Hilton Hotels even though they evidently contribute to the GDP of the country. Since environmental sustainability constitutes the nation’s major vision for the next several decades, it may take some stringent actions against Hilton Hotels if they continue with the illegal practice. Economical factors While analysing the economic spectrum of UK, it is clear that the nation is ranked at sixth in terms of nominal GDP and seventh in terms of purchasing power parity. The UK provides high business freedom (94.6) and trade freedom (87.6) in order to foster mercantile activities in the country (The Heritage Foundation, 2011). Hence, the country neither intervenes in the business operations of a firm nor imposes much restriction on its operational privacy. To some extent, this favourable situation assists the Hilton Hotels to skip the current environmental policies of the country. Since effective waste management could significantly benefit the economic growth of the country, the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has formulated a number of waste reduction policies. During the last year, the Defra conducted a detailed Review of Waste Policies in the country so as to ensure that existing policies and regulations are adequate enough to meet the environmental sustainability needs of the country (DEFRA, 2011). As Wintour, Elliott and Mulholland (2008) point out, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s press releases reflect that the country still has a lot to achieve in ensuring effective waste disposal. Admittedly, the UK government does not foster business activities which may hurt the long term sustainability of the country. Hence obviously, the current economic policies of the