Social Networking Meets Green Lodging

While at The Lodging Conference in Phoenix last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Richard Varner, founder of istaygreen.org. I highly recommend that you check out his site. There are many websites that feature green hotels and almost as many that include booking engines to access them. What istaygreen.org does, however, is go far beyond your typical green hotel site to include a social networking structure much like Facebook. Visitors to the site can create their own profiles, add friends, upload photos, form groups, create and respond to forum threads, and add comments and reviews to hotel profiles. The new site provides a means for travelers to police those hotel owners and operators who make false claims about environmental programs. Hotel owners can respond to traveler comments. The site also provides a way for hotel owners and operators to promote all of the good green things they are doing. For example, an owner can upload photos that show a hotel's green programs in progress.

With iStayGreen’s rapidly growing searchable directory of almost 3,000 Green Leaf Rated Properties, it’s easy for anyone to quickly locate and compare green lodging worldwide. To earn a Green Leaf Rating, hotels must complete a thorough self-audit and are then rated based on their eco-initiatives. Varner said the site already has more than 100,000 hotels listed. Is your property currently listed? Check out the site to find out.

A Green Meeting? You Decide.

I have often featured articles on Green Lodging News regarding the greening of meetings, the minimization of waste at meetings, etc. This week I am attending The Lodging Conference in Phoenix, an event that has drawn more than 1,400 attendees. Upon check-in at the conference, each attendee was given a goodie bag full of items, with each item featuring the logo of a sponsor (kind of like Halloween for adults). I was astounded at how heavy the bag was; it must have weighed 10 to 15 pounds. I had to make a special trip to my car to drop it off so that I would not have to lug it around. I am not looking forward to trying to pack these items in my suitcase for the trip home.

I do understand the reasoning for wanting to give conference attendees sponsored items. Without event sponsors, it would be much more difficult to run a profitable event. But is it necessary to give away so many items that probably will just end up in the trash? Why not make a donation to a green organization instead? Or, purchase carbon offsets on behalf of each attendee? Or buy something locally made that an attendee will want to keep?

Was what was given away at The Lodging Conference excessive? I will let you decide. Here is a list of what filled my goodie bag: three bottles of water (thankfully, one was made from Ingeo, a bioplastic that biodegrades easily); a baseball squeeze ball; a leather coaster; a pocket guide for the conference in case you don't want to haul around the more than one-inch thick conference guide; a 42-page attendee list; a CD with the same attendee list; a luggage tag (I will need that one for the extra piece of luggage I will have to purchase to carry my "goodies" home); a flash drive packaged within two boxes; another foam squeeze item in the shape of a dollar bill; a nightlight for reading; a miniature scale (probably to weigh that extra piece of luggage); a bottle of sunscreen; sticky notes; a laser pointer; yellow magic marker; lip balm; measuring tape; three peppermint candies; and a bath robe. Did I forget the kitchen sink? Just kidding about that one. I am not kidding about the fact that many of the items were made in China.

Some Talk About Toilet Paper

I had the pleasure of chatting with Diana Beltran today. She is the Environmental Development Manager at the Grand Hyatt New York, a property with 1,311 rooms. Diana told me that the hotel used to throw away unused rolls of toilet paper. (It is the hotel's policy to provide each guest with a full, new roll.) The tossed paper amounted to 65 pounds a week—3,380 pounds a year. That is the equivalent of more than a ton and a half of unused paper. Yikes! Thanks to an environmental initiative that has picked up steam this year, unused rolls of paper are no longer thrown away; they are donated to a homeless shelter. Congrats to the Grand Hyatt New York for choosing to spare a lot of wasted squares of TP.

So tell me, what does your property do with its unused rolls? Throw them away? Donate them? At what point is a roll removed from a room? After it is used by one guest? I will look forward to hearing from you.

U.S. LEED-Certified Hotel Total Now at 12

Three years ago, Marriott's University of Maryland University College Inn and Conference Center became the first U.S. hotel to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Since that time, 11 additional U.S. properties have earned the LEED designation. They include: Avalon Hotel and Spa, Portland, Ore.; Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa, American Canyon, Calif.; Len Foote Hike Inn, Dawsonville, Ga.; Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco; Aspen Skiing Co.'s Snowmass Golf Clubhouse, Aspen, Colo.; The Ambrose, Santa Monica, Calif.; The John James Audubon Lodge & Camp, Charlotte, N.C.; The Lodge and Spa at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Ga.; Hilton Vancouver Washington, Vancouver, Wash.; The Palazzo Las Vegas; and the Unity Village Hotel, Kansas City, Mo.

There are now more than 200 LEED-registered hotel projects at some stage of development. Be sure to visit Green Lodging News frequently for the latest updates on LEED projects.

Fairmont Loses Director of Environmental Affairs

Green Lodging News has learned that Michelle White, director of environmental affairs for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, recently left the company to pursue another opportunity. Fairmont is currently working to find a replacement for her. I had the opportunity to meet Michelle several times and wish her the best. Fairmont will miss her leadership. She played an integral role in developing and promoting the company's Green Partnership program and was one of our industry's leading champions for the environment.

Wyndham Steps Up Environmental Commitment

One hotel company after another is hiring V.P.-level executives to oversee sustainability efforts. It is a reflection of how seriously they are taking the importance of reducing their overall impact on the environment. You can bet that is not the only reason for the hirings, however. They also make a lot of sense from a profitability standpoint. When a company is large enough, it does not take long to recover the investment in a sustainability officer. Just a few energy-saving initiatives rolled out by that person can quickly result in millions of dollars in savings.

The latest company to hire a vice president, Sustainability and Innovation is Wyndham Worldwide, the world's largest lodging franchisor with nearly 6,500 hotels under 10 brands. (See article.) Wyndham actually promoted someone from within the company: Faith Taylor. Faith most recently was vice president of Innovation and Product Development for the Wyndham Hotel Group.

The hiring of Faith is just part of Wyndham's recent environmental commitment. The company has developed a Green Council and will roll out a WyndhamGreen Website this month. On October 2, the company is planning a "Global Green Day and Green Fair."

Green Lodging News applaud's Wyndham's efforts. If every franchised Wyndham property does what it can to reduce its resource consumption, it will have one whale of a positive impact.

Gatlinburg Hilton Garden Inn to Pursue LEED

According to WATE, Channel 6 in Knoxville, Tenn., construction is set to begin soon on a Hilton Garden Inn in Gatlinburg, Tenn., that will pursue Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The hotel will be built where the River Oaks Shopping Center now sits. "We want to do this to protect the environment and protect all the natural resources of the Great Smoky Mountains," said developer Logan Coykendall. Coykendall says they will reuse materials from the existing River Oaks Center. They will also use up to 20 percent recycled materials on the new building. It is a project slated to cost $15 million. The new hotel will also be made with regional materials. "Instead of getting materials from China or somewhere, we will try to get them from as close to home as we can," Coykendall said. The project should be complete by the summer of 2009. Click here for more details.