RLJ Lodging Trust : Corporate Sustainability Report 2022

CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

2022

MOXY DENVER CHERRY CREEK, CO

INTRODUCTION	1
Company Overview	1
From Our President and CEO	2
America's Most Responsible Companies	4
About This Report	5
ESG Highlights	5
2022 Portfolio	6
ESG APPROACH	7
ESG GOVERNANCE AND OVERSIGHT	10
Governance Strategy	10
Corporate Governance	11
Risk Management	12
Enterprise Risk Management	12
Environmental Risk Management	12
Cyber Risk Management	13
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT	14
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY	15
Environmental Strategy	15
Climate Change	15
Case Study-Hurricane Ida Response	16
Energy and Water Efficiency Investments	17
Case Study-Driving Energy Efficiency	18
Environmental Performance	19
Case Study-Incorporating Biodiversity in an
Iconic Refurbishment	20
Waste	21
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY	22
Diversity and Inclusion	22
Health and Well-Being	23
Case Study-Welcoming Associates Back
to the Office	24
Responsible Labor Practices	25
Community Engagement and Philanthropy	25
Case Study-Jericho Road, New Orleans	26
ROADMAP BEYOND 2022	27
APPENDIX	28

RENAISSANCE FORT LAUDERDALE WEST HOTEL, FL

RLJ Lodging Trust is one of the largest U.S. publicly traded lodging real estate investment trusts (REITs) in terms of both number of hotels and number of rooms. We seek to generate strong returns long-term for our shareholders by acquiring, owning and operating primarily premium-branded,focused-service and compact full-service hotels in markets that exhibit multiple demand generators and attractive long-term growth prospects.

As of December 31, 2021, RLJ owned 97 hotels and resorts, located in 22 states and the District of Columbia. Our properties represented approximately 21,500 rooms.

CORE PILLARS OF OUR BUSINESS STRATEGY

Disciplined Hotel Acquisition

We seek to acquire hotel properties at prices where we believe we can enhance value by pursuing proactive investment strategies such as renovation, repositioning or rebranding.

Pro-Active Asset Management

To enhance quality and attrac- tiveness, increase long-term value and generate attractive returns on investment, we actively monitor and advise our third-party management companies on key aspects of our hotels' operations, including property positioning, physical design, capital planning and investment, guest experience and overall strategic direction.

A Strong and

Flexible Balance Sheet

A strong balance sheet is a key competitive advantage that affords us a lower cost of capital and positions us for growth. We structure our debt profile to maintain financial flexibility and a balanced maturity schedule with access to different forms of financing.

Diversity and

Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion has been a pillar of RLJ since its inception and is part of our company DNA. Our culture and practice of diversity and inclusivity boosts motivation, brings new thoughts and ideas to our business, attracts top talent and helps to retain associates.

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FROM OUR

PRESIDENT

AND CEO

Leslie D. Hale

President and

Chief Executive Officer

To Our Stakeholders,

The robust recovery that our industry is achieving as it emerges from the impacts of COVID-19, attests to the overall resiliency of lodging and the fundamental human desire to form connections. As we navigated the pandemic over these recent years, not only have we remained steadfast in our commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters, but we are also delivering on our obligation to broaden our sustainability objectives, enhance our disclosures and set measurable goals for us to achieve in the future.

I am proud of all of the work we have done on ESG, especially upholding our long-standing commitment to the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, which has been embedded in RLJ since its founding. RLJ today continues to lead our industry as one of the most diverse organizations, with one third of our board composed of women and half that are ethnically diverse. Among our associates, nearly three in five are African American, Latino or Asian- American and over half of our employees are women. We recognize that there is still work that needs to be done, especially as it relates to advancing young people of color and we are committed to doing our part. In acknowledgement of this need for continued work, I have signed the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion™, which pledges support towards developing more inclusive and diverse workplaces. This commitment to diversity extends into our local communities

where we are active in supporting youth initiatives to drive education and opportunity that strives to make real and lasting social impact.

Further demonstrating our leadership, RLJ is an advocate for advancing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) across the entire REIT industry. This year we became a founding donor of NAREIT's Dividends Through Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DDEI) Giving Campaign which supports programs that focus on educating and creating opportunities including, but not limited to, internships, high school career readiness programs, supplier diversity initiatives, Corporate Real Estate (CRE) training, and more. Also, recognizing the need to address ethnic inequality in the workplace, in 2022 we pledged our support and participation in Management Leadership for Tomorrow's (MLT) Black Equity at Work certification program, which establishes a clear and comprehensive Black equity standard for employers. Furthermore, RLJ has directed significant financial contributions to empower minority and underrepresented individuals in the communities in which we operate, by supporting organizations such as the Robert Toigo foundation, N Street Village, Habitat for Humanity and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. Since going public, RLJ has donated over $4 million to these organizations, through our philanthropic efforts, which has positively impacted the lives of many.

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Within RLJ, we have made a concerted effort with respect to embedding ESG across all functional areas of our Company, and from a corporate governance perspective, we took an important step to enhance our Board oversight of ESG matters in 2021 in order to strengthen the interests of our stakeholders. Notably,

• We established an internal ESG Committee that meets at least once a quarter and has Board-level oversight through the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee that was

ratified in early 2022. Our Board is also aligned with respect to tying executive compensation to achievement of specific ESG-related objectives.

• We set a series of sustainability objectives, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as part of our corporate sustainability strategy and outlined them in our ESG approach in this report.
• We enhanced our ESG disclosures to ensure accountability and transparency by adding disclosures in accordance with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and have completed our first Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD).

We firmly believe that the sustainability of our business and the overall profitability is intricately linked to sound environmental stewardship. In the normal course of our business, we prioritize strategies that balance the need to reduce our environmental impact with enhancing operational efficiency, such as investing in areas that allow us to effectively monitor and reduce our water and energy usage. Since 2017 we have invested in over 130 efficiency projects. Through these and our wider initiatives and support from our hotel operators, across our portfolio since 2017, we have reduced our energy intensity by 19% and our Greenhouse Gas Intensity by 30% on a same-store basis. While our focused-service and compact full-service hotels with a smaller footprint lend themselves to overall being more efficient, we

are continuing to invest in incremental efficiency projects in the course of normal cycle renovations and conversions. Our Santa Monica hotel, which is currently undergoing a comprehensive renovation, recently achieved Energy Star certification, an EPA sponsored program that provides ratings on energy efficiency for real estate. Over the next several years we will target Energy Star certification across additional properties in our portfolio.

Our environmental policies are formalized in our ESG disclosures and we intend to continue to enhance our program to identify and mitigate climate and other environmental risks. This year, we are pleased to incorporate our inaugural TCFD disclosures in this report, which demonstrate our approach to identifying, understanding, and mitigating climate related risks.

Overall, upholding our corporate responsibility is integral to our broader business strategy and commitment to driving long-term stakeholder value. With our inaugural Corporate Sustainability Report, we seek to enhance our ESG disclosures and transparency. We are also taking measurable steps to address the impact of climate change on our portfolio. We are committing to setting specific and quantifiable targets including reducing our carbon emission by 35% by 2030. Additionally, we will continue to progress towards achieving improved energy and water efficiency across more of our properties and work closely with our operators to uphold the principles of diversity and inclusiveness on which RLJ was founded.

I want to thank all our stakeholders, including our associates, for their support and contribution to RLJ and its corporate responsibility efforts.

Sincerely,

Leslie D. Hale, President and Chief Executive Officer

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