Novotel's Ocean Positive Impact Plan: Continuing the Wave of Change

Taking action to preserve the health and longevity of the world’s oceans.

June 03, 2026

Two years into its ocean commitment and international partnership with WWF France, Novotel is driving tangible progress across its global network of more than 600 hotels, advancing operational change, marine conservation, sustainable seafood practices, and ocean awareness around the world.

Novotel has released its second Ocean Impact Report, transparently sharing the progress, challenges, and measurable impact achieved over the past year as the brand continues to advance long-term operational actions towards more sustainable practices and support to marine conservation projects around the world.

Why Preserving The Oceans Matters

Many of the world’s most loved destinations are shaped by the sea, while tourism itself depends on healthy natural environments. Yet the pressures facing the ocean do not begin only at the shoreline. Pollution, overfishing, habitat degradation, and climate change are all part of a much wider system, and around 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities. That means the choices made far from the coast, including those made by hotels, restaurants, suppliers, and travelers, still matter.

For Novotel, this creates both a responsibility and an opportunity. As a global hotel brand operating predominantly on land, its relationship with the ocean is shaped through everyday choices: the single-use plastics eliminated across properties, the ingredients used, the sourcing standards applied to seafood, the way teams are trained, and the experiences created for guests.

Novotel’s commitment to protecting the oceans is a direct extension of the brand's promise of Longevity – a healthy ocean supports planetary balance, more resilient communities, and a stronger future for travel.

Protecting the ocean is not a distant environmental concern. It is closely tied to the future of travel, to the resilience of communities, and to the quality of life we all depend on.

Jean-Yves Minet

Global Brand President, Midscale & Economy, Accor

 Impact in Action: Our Collective Milestones

In June 2024, Novotel embarked on a bold, three-year international partnership with WWF France, focused on rebalancing the brand’s impact on the ocean. Novotel committed to starting a wave of change within the hotels, establishing a roadmap of short and long-term initiatives across four pillars that form Novotel’s Positive Impact Plan. In its second year, Novotel’s ocean commitment has evolved into measurable action. Across more than 600 hotels worldwide, the brand has enhanced the way it operates, serves food, trains teams, engages guests, and supports marine conservation.

7
WWF ocean conservation projects supported by Novotel
92%
of Novotel hotels compliant with Accor’s single-use plastic policy
73%
of Novotel network eco-certified by a third party
50%
of Novotel hotels offer at least 25% of plant-forward menus
3,200+
hotel teams completed Novotel’s Ocean Awareness training
1,600+
kitchen teams completed the WWF Sustainable Seafood Training

Protecting the ocean requires long-term collaboration and collective action. Through its partnership with WWF France, Novotel continues to demonstrate how a global hospitality brand can help contribute to marine conservation not only through operational improvements, but also by supporting research, awareness, and community engagement initiatives that strengthen ocean resilience over time.

Ludovic Frère Escoffier

Ocean Program Manager, WWF France

Reducing Hotels’ Impact on The Oceans

For Novotel, ocean action begins long before the shoreline. It starts in the everyday mechanics of hospitality: the materials a hotel chooses to use, the systems it puts in place, and the resources it consumes behind the scenes. By the end of 2025, 92% of Novotel hotels had eliminated single-use plastics in line with Accor’s single-use plastic policy, while 73% of the network was eco-certified by a third party. These practical shifts are transforming hotel operations, but they also reflect something larger: a commitment to creating a more positive environmental impact across the Novotel network.

Delicious, Healthier, More Sustainable Food

Food is one of the most visible ways Novotel’s ocean commitments come to life, focusing on sustainable seafood practices and expanding plant-forward dining. By the end of 2025, 50% of Novotel hotels offered at least 25% vegetarian or vegan dishes. This commitment is brought to life through innovative partnerships, such as with culinary content creator Alfie Steiner, Novotel 37 Collective member, whose flavor-driven plant-powered dishes are now uniquely available in Novotel hotels.

Simultaneously, Novotel continues to embed its WWF Sustainable Seafood Principles across the network. With 41% of hotels banning over 350 vulnerable seafood species from menus, and over 1,600 chefs and kitchen teams trained in sustainable seafood sourcing, the brand is driving change from the kitchen to the plate.

Alongside operational changes inside hotels, Novotel is also helping advance broader seafood industry collaboration and supply chain transparency with WWF and other partners. In 2025, the brand became the first hospitality member of the Seafood Task Force (STF), strengthening oversight and transparency across the seafood supply chain, starting with a traceability project in Asia focusing on tuna and farmed shrimp across hotels in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Together, these efforts show how food can become a meaningful expression of care — bringing more thoughtful choices to one of the most immediate and sensory parts of the guest experience.

Enhancing Education & Ocean Awareness

Novotel’s Longevity promise extends to empowering guests. For lasting change to take root, people need more than policies and targets. They need context. They need to understand why a subject matters, how it connects to daily life, and where they themselves fit within the story. That is what makes education such an important part of Novotel’s ocean commitment. Welcoming more than 5 million families each year, Novotel has a unique opportunity to inspire the next generation to better understand and help protect the oceans.

Inspiring awareness around ocean preservation is an important part of creating lasting change. Hotels have the ability to connect with millions of guests and families every year, and that creates a meaningful opportunity to help make ocean conservation more visible, accessible, and engaging.

Jean-Yves Minet

Global Brand President, Midscale & Economy, Accor

Each June, World Ocean Month has become a recurring moment in the Novotel calendar, giving hotels worldwide a way to celebrate the cause with guests, local communities, and teams through events, content, and on-property experiences.

This year, Novotel is partnering with Kaushiik Subramaniam, an award-winning wildlife photographer, filmmaker, and conservation biologist whose work is helping bring greater visibility to the beauty, fragility, and urgency of ocean conservation.

As Novotel’s newly appointed Ocean Defender, and member of Novotel 37 Collective, Kaushiik will also support the launch of the brand’s “1% for the Ocean” initiative, combining his powerful visual storytelling with Novotel’s global reach to encourage guests to adopt simple, meaningful everyday actions that collectively contribute to ocean preservation. Guests can easily participate through QR codes, turning small choices into a global wave of positive change.

Spotlight on Conservation – Protecting Our Blue Planet

Novotel's support directly projects led by WWF France, making a real difference in marine ecosystems globally.

Protecting Posidonia Meadows

41 low-impact buoy conversions were completed in 2025 across coastal cities in the French Mediterranean, reducing damage to these vital underwater nurseries and carbon sinks.

This effort is expanding, including new international training and awareness campaigns targeting boat rental companies and boat owners.

In Their Words

The challenge is not only ecological, but practical. Coastal cities need solutions that are technically reliable, safe, and adapted to the realities of the sea. By replacing traditional buoy systems with lower-impact alternatives, we can reduce pressure on Posidonia and create models that can be shared across the Mediterranean.

Catherine Piante

Head of Maritime Areas Planning Division, WWF France

Tackling Ghost Gear

Over 1,094 hectares scanned in the Calanques National Park and 14 priority ghost nets removed, preventing continued harm to marine life.

In Their Words

Ghost gear is often invisible from the surface, but its impact can continue for years. The first step is knowing where to look.

Théa Jacob

Marine Species & Sustainable Fisheries Expert, WWF France.

Supporting the Blue Panda

The Blue Panda research vessel has spearheaded significant scientific missions across the Mediterranean, achieving a world first by recording the first electrocardiogram from a whale in the Mediterranean Sea.

Beyond research, the program actively engaged over 250 participants through events hosted during the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, connecting science with public advocacy for ocean protection.

In Their Words

When children come aboard Blue Panda, the ocean becomes real. Learning about marine biodiversity in a classroom is important, but stepping onto a vessel, meeting the crew, and discovering the work first-hand creates a different kind of memory. Sometimes, that is where a lifelong connection with nature begins.

Grégory Rondeau

Head of Blue Panda Program, WWF France

Protecting Western Atlantic Sea Turtles

In the Western Atlantic, WWF France’s sea turtle program is shaped as much by people as by species. It focuses on a region where leatherback, green, and olive ridley turtles face mounting pressure, particularly from illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing stretching from Brazil to Guyana.

Protecting them means more than monitoring nesting beaches. It means building local capacity, strengthening community advocacy, and fostering cross-border cooperation across the Guiana Shield.

In Their Words

UNOC was a key moment because it brought together civil society representatives, youth ambassadors, fishers, and coastal communities from the Guiana Shield. It helped position the project internationally, while giving local voices a platform to speak directly about sea turtle protection.

Marie Trémolet

Regional Cooperation Officer, WWF France in French Guiana

Blue Corridors for Sea Turtles

The Blue Corridors for Turtles project identifies crucial ocean areas for marine turtles throughout their life cycle. In 2025, this global effort amassed over 50 additional satellite tracking datasets, vastly expanding our understanding of turtle movements.

Further strengthening its impact, a key partnership was formalized with the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, enhancing collaborative efforts for worldwide turtle protection.

In Their Words

For the first time, we are bringing movement data and genetics together at a global scale to help identify the ocean areas that are most important for marine turtles throughout their life cycle.

Christine Madden

Global Marine Turtle Conservation Lead, WWF-Coral Triangle Program

Protecting Posidonia Meadows

41 low-impact buoy conversions were completed in 2025 across coastal cities in the French Mediterranean, reducing damage to these vital underwater nurseries and carbon sinks.

This effort is expanding, including new international training and awareness campaigns targeting boat rental companies and boat owners.

In Their Words

Catherine Piante

Head of Maritime Areas Planning Division, WWF France

Tackling Ghost Gear

Over 1,094 hectares scanned in the Calanques National Park and 14 priority ghost nets removed, preventing continued harm to marine life.

In Their Words

Ghost gear is often invisible from the surface, but its impact can continue for years. The first step is knowing where to look.

Théa Jacob

Marine Species & Sustainable Fisheries Expert, WWF France.

Supporting the Blue Panda

In Their Words

Grégory Rondeau

Head of Blue Panda Program, WWF France

Protecting Western Atlantic Sea Turtles

Protecting them means more than monitoring nesting beaches. It means building local capacity, strengthening community advocacy, and fostering cross-border cooperation across the Guiana Shield.

In Their Words

Marie Trémolet

Regional Cooperation Officer, WWF France in French Guiana

Blue Corridors for Sea Turtles

Further strengthening its impact, a key partnership was formalized with the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, enhancing collaborative efforts for worldwide turtle protection.

In Their Words

For the first time, we are bringing movement data and genetics together at a global scale to help identify the ocean areas that are most important for marine turtles throughout their life cycle.

Christine Madden

Global Marine Turtle Conservation Lead, WWF-Coral Triangle Program

Expanding Ocean Protection with WWF

In 2026, we’re expanding our impact around the world through partnerships with WWF Australia and WWF Poland.

Whale protection initiative in Australia

Novotel’s partnership with WWF extends into Australian waters through a dedicated whale protection initiative with WWF Australia. Surrounded by some of the world’s most biodiverse marine ecosystems, Australia is a critical geography for several migratory whale species. By strengthening the scientific understanding of whale migration in the region, the project will contribute to more informed advocacy for marine protection and spatial planning.

Addressing ghost gear along the coast of Poland

Novotel becomes a partner and co-founder of a new project with WWF Poland to tackle ghost gear in the Baltic Sea. While initial phases will prioritize data gathering and assessment, the longer-term ambition is to enable scalable removal and circular waste management approaches, contributing both to cleaner marine environments and to more sustainable fishing practices in the Baltic Sea.

For more information about Novotel’s commitment to the protection of the oceans, the brand’s partnership with WWF France, visit Novotel – Ocean.