Hotels: What's good for the environment is good for business
Hotels and resorts getting in on the great green rush
Harvey Chipkin, Travel Weekly, 5/1/2007 (excerpted)
The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a directive that as of May 1, its travel managers must ask hotels and convention centers where EPA staff might be staying about recycling programs, energy efficiency, use of paperless billing and policies on reusing towels. The agency will consider the answers when it evaluates hotel bids.
The EPA reports that it annually spends about $50 million on travel, much of it on meetings. Even higher stakes will be involved when the General Services Administration, which sets policy for all government travel, starts asking similar questions about environmental policies.
Those are powerful incentives for hotels to go green, but the Green Revolution has been well under way in the hotel industry for several years, and for many reasons.
Chains have been changing the way they operate to cut costs and respond to guest demands. They also use environmental awareness as a marketing tool that is becoming increasingly important in step with corporate clients' demands to do business with environmentally conscious vendors.
How green was my valet?
But tracking exactly what "green" means in the lodging context can be tricky. Any hotel can call itself "green," even if that only means it recycles or simply employs a towel and linen reuse program where guests are asked to put towels or sheets on the floor if they want them changed.
Green can also be defined by architectural standards, community programs such as distributing leftover food, purchasing locally or undertaking "carbon-neutral" programs. Initiatives can range from the micro, such as offering free valet parking for hybrid cars, to the macro, such as building a property to LEED standards.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the best-known environmental certification program for architecture and construction.
Administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, its standards cover such criteria as human and environmental health, sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality -- criteria that pretty well cover the gamut of what green means.
According to the USGBC, there are many business incentives for seeking LEED designation, such as cutting down on toxic hazards to staff and guests, saving money on energy bills, cutting back on pollution and winning points with consumers for sensitivity.
As of now, very few hotels have LEED certification, although Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Capital Group, promises to build a chain of LEED-certified hotels.
Hilton's LEED-certified property is the Hilton Vancouver Washington. The hotel's restaurant buys locally grown produce from the nearby Vancouver Farmers Market. The chef also purchases produce, meat, fish, cheese, wine and bread from local farmers and producers. These practices reduce the carbon emissions produced by shipping food and supplies.
Another of the few LEED-certified hotels in the U.S. is the Orchard Garden in San Francisco. Among its green attributes is a system that starts or stops power to a room when the guest enters or leaves.
Most hotels are already at least "greenish." According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, two-thirds of U.S. hotels implement the familiar linen/towel reuse program where towels and linens are changed daily only at the request of guests, and otherwise washed between stays or after a certain period.
"There are two aspects to being a green building, hotel or otherwise," said Jim Butler, a hotel industry lawyer who runs HotelLawBlog.com. "One involves the physical aspects of the building and site, such as water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Are the paints nontoxic? Are the systems low-energy and do they involve recyclable or reusable materials?"
The second aspect, Butler said, involves the actual operations of the physical plant.
"How is it run?" said Butler. "Is it environmentally friendly? Is it carbon neutral? What are the soaps, shampoos and water heads? What kind of lighting products do you use? How do you run your operations to be environmentally friendly?"
You can hear the Eco
However individual properties define green, the hotel industry is jumping aboard the environmental train in a big way. In March, Lodging Hospitality, a trade magazine, along with Pineapple Hospitality, a supplier of environment-friendly products, hosted what they called the first Green Hospitality Conference in Dallas.
There were seminars on energy management, cleaning products and the challenges facing hotel operators seeking to become more involved in the sustainability movement.
The conference itself, according to organizers, "was certified as carbon-neutral, as sponsors provided funds to offset carbon emissions during the event."
For some lodging companies, all of this is nothing new. Boston-based Saunders Hotel Group created a Green Team in 1989, according to Tedd Saunders, executive vice president and director of ecological affairs. The company's first steps consisted of early environmental practices like recycling.
Recently, Saunders' Lenox Hotel was selected as the top urban hotel in the world on Conde Nast Traveler's Annual Green List, the only urban hotel in the world selected for the recognition. Saunders said the hotel was the first to offer a towel and linen reuse option, and now offsets 100% of the carbon emissions resulting from its electricity usage.
In addition, the Lenox uses cleaning products, air fresheners and paints designed to improve indoor air quality.
Another early adopter, Fairmont Hotels, formed a Fairmont Green Partnership in 1990 and now publishes "The Green Partnership Guide," a handbook for the industry.
Green from Day 1
Entire chains are being planned with green values as their foundation. Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group plans to call its new luxury brand 1 Hotels & Residences.
Even mega-chains are on the case. Marriott recently announced it was on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly one fifth over a 10-year period from 2000 to 2010. The company said that would be the equivalent of taking nearly 140,000 cars off the roads.
Marriott will soon open its first LEED-certified hotel: The Inn and Conference Center by Marriott at the University of Maryland in Adelphi, Md.
Going green cuts across rate categories. Jumeirah, which operates some of the world's most lavish hotels, is looking at rewarding environmentally conscious guests with loyalty points.
Just last week, Leading Hotels of the World announced the Leading Green Initiative.
It is a carbon-neutral program whereby LHW will directly absorb the cost to offset guests' energy consumption for stays at any of the 440 member hotels.
LHW will make a donation of 50 cents to Sustainable Travel International for every night of a guest's stay when a booking is made through www.lhwgreen.com or when "Leading Green" is mentioned to a reservations taker.
"It's a Wild West situation right now because there is such a wide spectrum of what might be called green," said Glenn Hasek, publisher of GreenLodgingNews.com, an online newsletter. "The good news is that more programs like LEED are coming along to set standards."
Green business is good business
Many in the industry are convinced that travelers will be seeking out green qualities just as they do a spa or free wireless Internet access.
"Our guests tell us they will stay with us only because of green policies," said Anne Larcade, president of Sequel Hotels.
Saunders said it was no longer just "do-gooders" who were involved in going green.
"Smart business people recognize that guests are truly interested in this, that you can develop customer loyalty that you can't attain in any other way."
Steve Pinetti, vice president of marketing for Kimpton Hotels, said that a recent survey of 4,000 business travelers revealed that 16% chose Kimpton specifically because of its environmental policies.
He said that in January, the Sierra Club booked $70,000 in rooms, food and beverage at Kimpton's Hotel Palomar in downtown Washington, stating the chain's EarthCare program was a critical factor in selecting the hotel.
Butler put it this way: "As a consumer, would you rather patronize a green hotel or another, if all other factors were similar? And wouldn't you even pay a little premium for it, as we all did for high-speed Internet, at least for a while. Then we wouldn't stay at a place without it."
Effect on agents
Why should agents be knowledgeable about green developments?
There are lots of reasons, according to Cory Hagopian, Fairmont's director of global sales for retail travel.
"There is a rising awareness of the issue," Hagopian said, "including the effect of the Al Gore film ("An Inconvenient Truth"). Clients are increasingly seeking ecotours, packages and environmentally friendly accommodations. Agents in the know can guide clients to such products that don't compromise on luxury or the experience they want."
There are many sites listing green hotels or green standards. While criteria vary, these resources at least provide guidelines. Web sites include the Green Hotels Association's GreenHotels.com, Greenseal.org, EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com, CERES Green Hotel Initiative's Ceres.org and the International Ecotourism Society's Ecotourism.org.
It is up to agents and travelers to know what's real and what's hype. According to Harinakshi Nair, a senior associate with HVS Eco Services in Mumbai, "The hotels have to make sure that they live up to their claim of being environmentally friendly. They have to make sure that proper standards are laid down to conserve natural resources like water and energy, and there are apposite recycling practices etc. But most importantly, they have to ensure that appropriate training is imparted to staff for them to believe in and take the environment program forward. This is where a third-party certification helps in giving the hotel authenticity and credibility."
Nair said agents and travelers need to ask about the hotel's environment policy.
"How do they save natural resources and make optimum use of the same?" he said. "They could also ask about their staff and guest programs on one hand, and on the other, are they involving their suppliers by greening the supply chain? Externally they could also find out how are they promoting the cause of environment in their neighborhood and society at large."
• Marriott said it initiated a "re-lamp" campaign that replaced 450,000 light bulbs with fluorescent lighting in 2006, saving 65% on lighting costs and energy usage in guest rooms. Its cigarette smoke-free policies will result in a 30% reduction in energy use for air treatment systems, it said.
• Hilton implemented a corporate-wide, energy-efficient lighting program for rooms: Before, the average room had 750 watts of lighting using incandescent bulbs, it said. After the retrofit, the wattage was reduced by 70%, while the level of light was increased. By using state-of-the-art equipment, it reduced the amount of water used to clean a pound of linens from about two gallons of water to one gallon.
• Hyatt said that since 2000 it had reduced energy consumption by 38 million kilowatt-hours per year by installing compact fluorescent bulbs in its guest rooms. The company reduced energy consumption by more than 2 million kilowatt-hours a year by installing Energy Star-rated televisions. -- H.C.