FiNTEL Sustain rankings 2024: Number 3, Caesars Entertainment

“Smart businesses have long recognised that robust environmental, social and governance (ESG) programmes can add value to businesses in many ways,” says Caesars Entertainment SVP of engineering and asset management Eric Dominguez.

For Caesars, sustainability efforts stretch back decades. The strategy began as a way of fulfilling different needs across various parts of the business. “However, over time, we learned that formalising our governance structure and centralising our approach to aggregating best practices was a better way to ensure programmes, initiatives and engagement happened more uniformly across the organisation,” Dominguez adds. 

Today sustainability is aligned with Caesars’ core business, making it a strategic imperative embedded into Caesars rather than a short-term programme or initiative with a limited shelf life, he explains. 

Dominguez sees ESG as essential to all industries, including gaming, and for Caesars it’s structured around the PEOPLE PLANET PLAY framework, with a focus on acting with integrity and care for its team members, communities and the environment.

“We believe it’s imperative that our ESG programming is ingrained in our everyday business and that all operators and suppliers figure out how best to integrate sustainability into their businesses,” he continues. “The challenges we face are real and will take solutions and actions by our industry and beyond to make a difference.”

Deploying science-based goals globally at Caesars

By embedding sustainability across all aspects of the business, it also makes it more scalable across the Caesars portfolio. This means efforts such as its HERO volunteer programme or efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by investing in energy efficiency measures – “goals that align with science,” Dominguez notes – can be deployed globally.

That focus, he says, speaks to the investment community. “Being a responsible business means more than delivering solid returns to shareholders – it also means caring for our guests, team members and communities.

“It means recognising that too much of anything can be a problem and understanding that the planet is facing challenges and it’s important for us to do our part to mitigate such risks.”

The investment community understands responsible businesses are smart businesses, Dominguez continues, which perform better over time. Sustainability, he argues, is not only an important aspect of managing risks but also creating a culture committed to delivering exceptional outcomes. 

Being ranked in FiNTEL Sustain’s top 10 therefore reinforces the fact that programmes and actions embedded in PEOPLE PLANET PLAY are working and delivering more, he says. “We recognise there’s more to be done but with the support of our leadership team and our 50,000+ team members, we’re confident our work in this area will continue to progress.

“And we’re hopeful Caesar’s successes will encourage others in our industry and beyond to embrace sustainability and ESG efforts as many of the challenges we collectively face will take a village to tackle.”

Over the next week iGB will be counting down the remaining highest ranked companies in FiNTEL Sustain’s Sustainability Plus rating system. Watch FiNTEL Sustain founders Robert Montgomery and Steven Myers share the rationale for creating a gaming-specific rating system in this exclusive interview.