Eric is the Director of ESG for Playa Hotels and Resort (NASDAQ: PLYA) where he is responsible for Playa’s ESG reporting and obligations to both the European Union and the United States, as well as closely collaborates across all departments and resorts to champion sustainability initiatives and uphold Playa’s commitment to ESG practices. Sustainability and social impact have always been important parts of Playa, with its focus on finding tangible means of reducing environmental impact and supporting local communities through social initiatives.
Prior to joining Playa, he managed the ESG program for Elme Communities (NYSE: ELME), as well as led the U.S. Energy and Sustainability Services Department of Cushman & Wakefield, one of the largest real estate advisory firms in the world. Eric holds a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida and is a licensed Professional Engineer. When he's not delving into the world of sustainability, Eric enjoys hiking and running, often accompanied by his youngest daughter in her stroller or hiking backpack.
Sustainability Reporting
As a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: PLYA) headquartered in the Netherlands, we here at Playa Hotels & Resorts (Playa) are gearing up to comply with the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a significant undertaking in the disclosure of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) aspects of our company in a standardized manner. CSRD disclosures relate to the material ESG-related risks, impacts and opportunities of our corporate activities and require third-party assurance of this reported information.
For Playa, complying with the CSRD will involve hundreds of disclosures related to thousands of data points across the company and portfolio, including but not limited to climate-related financial risk, value chain, energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water withdrawals, waste generation and treatment metrics and work-force related information. As such, Playa created an ESG Department in 2024, expanding upon our existing sustainability program, “Playa Cares”. Our focus is two-pronged: work across all departments to ensure reporting compliance and continue to expand sustainability strategies at our destinations and resorts.
To manage this vast amount of information, we partnered with Watershed, whose platform enables us to collect environmental and social data from a variety of sources, calculate the carbon footprint of the organization and develop the qualitative and quantitative disclosures required for CSRD (and other frameworks, as needed)
Data collection not only helps enable us to comply with EU reporting requirements but identifies opportunities and determines the effectiveness of programs and projects.
At each Playa resort, our teams collect utility invoices, measure the weight of different waste streams leaving our resorts, monitor groundwater withdrawal from on-site wells, record reverse osmosis production and rejection and document hundreds of other daily and/or monthly points of environmental data. This evidence is amassed by a third-party data entry provider, which compiles information as necessary and feeds it into the Watershed platform. Data goes through multiple reviews for accuracy and quality, including Regional Sustainability Managers who identify and investigate trends, outliers, anomalies, or potential issues across our portfolio.
Additionally, data from our accounting software (SAP) and Human Resources platform (SuccessFactors) are integrated into Watershed to further develop a holistic understanding of the organization, including workforce metrics, climate-related financial impacts and Scope 3 upstream and downstream GHG emissions throughout our value chain.
A key aspect of the platform is our auditors’ ability to access the raw data for assurance, as well as see every step of calculations completed, such as converting utility data into GHG emissions including emission factors and any assumptions made by our team.
Beyond Reporting
At Playa, we are dedicated to reducing our environmental impact, as well as building resilience across our resorts. Data collection not only helps enable us to comply with EU reporting requirements, but also identify opportunities and determine effectiveness of programs and projects.
In Jamaica, we have begun development of our first trigeneration facility, enabling our Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa to generate its own electricity, while using excess heat from the microturbine to support the operation of boilers for hot water and chillers for the conditioning of rooms. Additionally, these natural gas turbines allow the resort to not rely on grid electricity, which can fluctuate throughout the day and increase wear on equipment, as well as be adversely impacted by heavy storms and hurricanes. Since implementation, our total Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions for the resort have seen an average monthly decrease of 17% compared to the previous year.
In Mexico, we are working at multiple resorts towards deploying large-scale battery energy storage systems on-site. These storage systems can capture grid energy during off-peak hours (and potential future on-site renewable energy) and utilize this captured energy during periods of high demand (“peak hours”). This load-shifting and peak-shaving during “peak hours” to periods of lower demand can reduce utility costs for the resort, as well as potentially reduce the variability and facilitate the continuity of the electricity supply to avoid interruptions due to cuts in the grid or poor energy quality.
These are only two of the initiatives we are launching as we seek to reduce our environmental impact and mitigate risk, utilizing data to evaluate success while also providing auditable disclosures for our stakeholders. As we enter 2025, we look forward to continuing our sustainability journey and ensuring we provide a clear picture of our impact.
