A Green Hotels Primer
by: Marlene Goldman

The numbers are in and more than mildly incriminating.

The hospitality industry spends $3.7 billion a year on energy and the average hotel purchases more products in one week than 100 families do in a year. Typical hotels use 218 gallons of water per day per occupied room and waste generation can be as high as 20 to 30 pounds per hotel room per day.

Just a few years ago, those figures barely registered a blip on the global consciousness radar, but in the wake of the current green revolution, everyone from boutique hotels to the world’s largest chains is racing to out-green each other.

The first visible signs crept up in the early ’90s when Patricia Griffin launched the Green Hotels Association, which provided member hotels with the now ubiquitous towel and linen reuse cards.

“It was such a simple idea and easily workable, it had to be a success,” Griffin says. The goal was to reduce bills, reduce resources and save money. Feedback found that 70 percent of guests participate, and hotels can save 5 percent on utilities alone.

Today the association, as well as many private hotels and the largest chains, are going well beyond towel and linen programs. The association now offers handbooks and a meeting planner questionnaire to help determine the different levels of green for each facility, addressing everything from a hotel’s recycling programs and implementation to the efficiency of its lighting fixtures.

Major Chain Initiatives

Hotels are touting their own green initiatives, with the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts chain leading the way. Fairmont offers its own Green Partnership Program, focusing on improvements in waste management, energy and water conservation, as well as community outreach through local groups and partnerships.

“Fairmont is a pioneer in developing environmental programs and we have maintained leadership in that role,” says Michelle White, director of environmental affairs for the Fairmont chain.

Aside from its own hotel greening, Fairmont runs a brand-wide green meetings program, Eco-Meet (www.fairmont.com/environment), which offers a set of guidelines for planners in greening their events. Fairmont also launched its own carbon offset program, purchasing renewable energy certificates to compensate for energy consumed by its front desk computers.

Marriott Hotels & Resorts is also emerging as a green leader, earning awards for the last three years from the EPA for energy management. Over the last six months it has ramped up its efforts to reduce its environmental footprint, according to Kathleen Matthews, head of global communications and public affairs for the company.

“We are on target to reduce our greenhouse gases by one-fifth over a 10-year period (2000-2010) through energy conservation,” Matthews says.

In a worldwide effort, the chain recently replaced 450,000 light bulbs to compact fluorescents, saving 65 percent on lighting costs, and installed 400,000 low-flow showerheads, reducing 10 percent of its hot water usage a year.

“In the last several months we instituted an executive-level green council. We’re moving in a more aggressive direction, putting a green filter over our decision-making,” Matthews says.

Marriott also is piloting a program to monitor its hotel recycling to make sure each property is up to standard. It hired three LEED-certified architects and has one of a handful of LEED-certified hotels in the country, the Inn & Conference Center, University of Maryland at Maryland College.

“It’s very nascent right now, requests from groups. There is not an avalanche yet, but we want to be prepared for the avalanche,” Matthews says.

Hilton Hotels Corporation prides itself as the first company in the industry to receive the Energy Star award from the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. Hilton also opened the LEED-certified Hilton Vancouver Washington last year.

Taking it a step further, in May Hilton New York installed a PureCell Model 200 commercial fuel cell power system, one of the cleanest power generating technologies available. The fuel cell will provide around 6 percent of the electrical energy for the hotel, according to George Neeson, vice president of engineering and housekeeping for Hilton.

“It’s the equivalent of the removal of 150 cars from same environment, or 160 acres of forest annually,” Neeson says.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide is in the process of developing a sustainability council and next year is launching its eco-friendly Element Hotels brand. Shampoo and conditioner dispensers will eliminate multiple mini-bottles, and carpets will be installed with up to 100 percent recycled content.

“The Element brand is a lead piece and learning opportunity for Starwood as a whole,” says Nicholas Lakas, director of New York-based Element Hotels. “It will be transferred to all the Starwood brands.”

Starwood Capital Group is launching its own luxury green hotel brand, “1” Hotel and Residences. All of the buildings will be built to LEED standards and all interiors will be LEED-compliant.

The first hotel will be the “1” Hotel and Residences Seattle, expected to open in late 2008.

Small-Chain and Indy Offerings

Smaller chains are also getting involved. Saunders Hotel Group in Boston was one of the first on the block in environmental stewardship, with programs in place since the ’80s. Its EcoLogical Solutions is a consultant for properties and organizations to help the greening process and has worked with everyone from Boston Green Tourism to the EPA.

Saunders’ Lenox Hotel made Conde Nast Traveler’s Green List last year for its ecological and community work, including the hotel’s Swan Fund for the Environment, which since 1992  has donated more than $180,000 to local and national organizations.

Kimpton Hotels touts its EarthCare program and has earned numerous awards for its environmental practices, including eco-friendly cleaning supplies, paperless checkout and donation of unused amenity bottles to charity, among other initiatives.

Wyoming’s Grand Teton Lodge Company recently unveiled its “Go Green, Get Green” meeting package at the Jackson Lake Lodge, with the goal of encouraging meeting planners to incorporate environmental stewardship initiatives into their programs. It offers a list of green options and allows meeting planners to earn up to a 9 percent rebate for hosting a green meeting.

San Francisco’s Orchard Garden Hotel is also very much a green showpiece.

“Going green doesn’t mean staff wearing Birkenstocks and hemp shirts,” says Stefan Muhle of the boutique property. You can be luxurious and green at the same time.”

The hotel features the guest room key card system popular in Europe, in which a key card is needed to turn and keep the lights on.

“We built it manually,” Muhle says.

The system cost just under $50,000 but Muhle expects to make the money back in saved energy in two to three years.

California’s Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa, like the Orchard Garden Hotel, is applying for LEED Gold certification. The lobby actually even features a kiosk spotlighting the property’s green attributes.

The hotel is designed to use 15 percent less energy and 40 percent less water than average for its size. Each of the 132 guest rooms is stocked with a copy of Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth, and instead of a chocolate, short poems about nature are found on each pillow.

“I still impact the earth through my development, but I am pretty confident the message I deliver outweighs that impact,” says Wen-I Chang, founder and president of Gaia. “Our mission is to change the world one traveler at a time.”