Earth Day 2025: Sands’ Chief Sustainability Officer Outlines Environmental Priorities for the Year

Earth Day 2025 is a moment in time when the world collectively reflects on and celebrates environmental sustainability, but Sands has made protecting the planet one of the company’s perpetual priorities and a pillar of its corporate responsibility platform.

Chief Sustainability Officer Katarina Tesarova leads the Sands ECO360 global sustainability program, which guides Sands’ environmental initiatives in four areas: low-carbon transition, waste reduction, water stewardship, and incorporation of sustainable materials and resources.

To commemorate Earth Day 2025, Tesarova outlined the company’s environmental goals for the year and approach to developing its next phase of initiatives.

Where is Sands placing emphasis in 2025?

“This year is an important time for us as it’s the final year in our 2021-2025 reporting cycle,

so our focus will be on completing our targets, ambitions and projects for this period. It’s also an exciting time because while we’re concluding one stage, we’re also starting our planning process for 2026–2030.

“In the area of low-carbon transition, we continue to look for opportunities to improve energy efficiency in our buildings and identify options for renewable power. We’ve scheduled more than 10 conservation projects that are estimated to reduce our energy consumption by more than 20 million kWh annually.

“Under our water stewardship priority, we’ve outlined several conservation projects, focusing on water recovery and reuse. We also continue to work on water ecosystem preservation projects through our Drop by Drop Project initiative with The WASH Foundation. We’re working with grantees Conservation International in Singapore on youth education and the University of Saint Joseph in Macao on a mangrove research project.

“For waste, our main priority continues to be reducing food waste in our operations. We’ll be installing additional food waste digesters in Macao and improving food waste segregation in all of our kitchens globally.

“Finally for materials and resources, we continue to remove single-use products from our operations and source more sustainable products such as cage-free eggs.”

How do environmental priorities extend globally in Sands’ regions?

“As an organization, we have a consistent strategy and targets; however, properties are encouraged to address their region-specific environmental needs. Localization is helpful for the entire company because successful initiatives are then carried out in other regions. Planning for our new strategy cycle also is a very collaborative effort in which we work closely together.

“A significant priority this year for both Macao and Singapore is reducing food waste. Marina Bay Sands in Singapore has set an ambitious goal of sorting and collecting all food waste generated at the resort. In Macao, the plan is to significantly improve food waste diversion through a combination of projects and initiatives targeting specific restaurants that generate the largest amount of food waste.”

How will the conclusion of the reporting cycle influence environmental initiatives going forward?

“First, we have a strong priority on achieving the five-year targets we set for the period.  Simultaneously, we’re in a strategic planning process that spans more than a year and has several distinct stages such as assessing our current program and researching new trends and what best-in-class companies are doing. We also will get perspectives from relevant stakeholders on a variety of topics and conduct a new materiality assessment, which helps us identify topics that are most important to our business and sets the foundation for new environmental targets.

“Once these elements are complete, we shift our focus to developing detailed strategies for each of our topics. When the draft strategy is in place, we circle back with stakeholders to confirm we successfully incorporated their feedback.”

Sands has been working to formalize a biodiversity strategy. What’s on tap this year?

“We identified biodiversity as an emerging topic in our current reporting cycle and outlined a proposed strategy that encompasses three areas: deforestation prevention, ocean health and nature conservation.

“We’re collaborating with World Wide Fund for Nature in Singapore to help us identify biodiversity hot spots in our supply chain. For example, timber, beef and palm oil are representative of commodities that tend to have a negative biodiversity impact. We’re working to determine what measures in our supply chain can help us prevent these negative impacts.

“In addition, we continue to monitor endangered species in the close vicinities of our resorts and support nature conservation projects such as beach clean-ups and mangrove planting.”

What role will other departments and Team Members play in 2025?

“Team Members always play a crucial role in our environmental priorities. While our sustainability departments in each region are the primary people responsible for implementation of sustainability initiatives, all Team Members can identify opportunities for improvement as part of their day-to-day jobs.

“Because sustainability touches so many areas of our business, our sustainability teams work with a number of departments such as facilities, food and beverage operations, housekeeping, procurement and more. Additionally, our Team Members generously volunteer their time to support environmental causes such as beach clean-ups, and they’ve even photographed local species to document biodiversity.”

What are you most excited about for this year?

“Embarking on a new chapter brings excitement. In Singapore, we’re building a new resort tower, which presents a unique opportunity to strategically implement innovative sustainability measures from the beginning.

“As we finish our third five-year environmental cycle, and I’m incredibly proud of our steadfast progress over the past 15 years. It confirms the commitment to and importance of sustainability for us. Reflecting on our accomplishments during those five years and celebrating the people who made it possible will be truly rewarding.”

To learn more about Sands’ environmental progress, read the company’s newly published 2024 ESG Report: https://www.sands.com/resources/reports/.