In little more than a year, this luxury hotel brand will remove all single-use plastics from its properties.

The commitment was announced last week and goes further than the recently popular plastic straw bans. The commitment will end single-use plastics in the portfolio by the end of March 2021.

The effort to remove plastics from properties has been underway for some time. First, the hotel group completed a stock inventory to see which items are responsible for most of the waste at the properties. Twenty-three items made the list for most common plastic items, and the hotel group already removed 86 percent of the offending products.

“Plastic waste is one of the gravest environmental concerns affecting our planet today. While our relatively small footprint limits our contribution to the world’s plastic reduction, as one of the most iconic luxury global hotel groups we are in a strong position to drive important changes in the industry,” said James Riley, chief executive, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.

Right now, the group is pursuing a number of strategies to reduce the overall waste. Staff from every hotel is welcome to find solutions for specific products, then share them as best practices company-wide. In order to speed the process, each hotel has specific goals to work on.

The first status update report is expected at the end of March 2020.