Sircle Collection Hotels: Sustainability Strategy
The Challenge
Sircle Collection operates 13 hotels and 26 restaurants and bars across the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Austria. The company had already begun its sustainability journey, with existing guidelines covering responsible employment, food procurement, waste management, and community engagement. But these efforts were not standardized across the organization.
Sircle needed a unified sustainability vision, one that would establish shared values, develop organization-wide principles, and provide holistic goals applicable across diverse European markets and property types.
Applying SiD
Except used the Symbiosis in Development (SiD) framework to develop an organization-wide sustainability strategy. The collaborative approach included site visits to Sircle locations, brainstorming sessions with organizational decision-makers, and insights gathering from all operational levels.
SiD's holistic perspective proved particularly valuable for the hospitality sector. Hotels sit at the intersection of multiple sustainability domains: energy and water consumption, food systems, supply chains, employee well-being, cultural integration with local communities, and guest experience. SiD connected these domains into a single strategic framework rather than treating them as separate compliance checkboxes.
The project team used system mapping to understand how Sircle's operations interact with broader social and environmental systems. This revealed opportunities for systemic improvement that individual property-level initiatives would miss.
Outcomes
The project delivered two core documents:
Guideline Structure
A comprehensive document organizing sustainability improvements across three categories: asset operation, asset development, and company management. This structure provides each Sircle property team with the foundation to develop locally relevant policies and action points.
Sustainability Manifesto
Built on the guidelines, this document presents Sircle's sustainability vision along with supporting pillars and five golden rules for long-term value creation. The manifesto aims to influence not only Sircle's own operations but also the wider hospitality industry and its supply chains.
The strategy enables Sircle Collection to independently develop 5- to 15-year roadmaps for sustainable transitions, implement smart supply chain management, and progressively improve their environmental footprint across all properties.
Key SiD Methods Used
- SiD integrated systems thinking for cross-portfolio strategy
- ELSI framework connecting all sustainability domains
- System mapping of hospitality value chains
- Co-creation with multi-level organizational stakeholders
- Vision and goal-setting for long-term transitions