Disney’s Coronado Springs (Fla.) Resort has set its lighting, air-conditioning and room-temperature controls on green settings.
When it comes to the hotel industry, “environmental responsibility” is not the first catchphrase that springs to mind. It is, after all, a world rife with disposable amenities for a transient population, a landscape dotted with restaurants, heated pools, spas and other energy-gobbling facilities. In fact, the Washington, D.C.-based American Hotel & Lodging Association estimates that in the United States alone, hotels spend $3.7 billion a year on energy, with much of it going to waste, and the typical property uses 218 gallons of water per day, per occupied room.
On the encouraging side, many hoteliers both here and abroad have evolved from business as usual to make green initiatives a core part of their corporate culture. The following five chains are tackling the challenges of water consumption, waste production, energy use and more. They have formulated best-practice policies and rolled out extensive employee training programs to meet their goals of responsible environmental stewardship. They might not be the largest players in the industry, but they are among the few who are blazing a path and making a significant difference.
Walt Disney World Resort
Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
www.disneymeetings.com
Portfolio: 21 properties in Florida
Disney resorts in the Sunshine State rolled out environmental initiatives in the early 1990s. Since then, 13 of the properties have been awarded Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection Green Lodging Certification. “Our goal is to have all 21 resorts certified,” says Karen Green, manager of environmental initiatives for Walt Disney World Resort. “Our definition of doing what’s right for the environment drives everything.”
Green, who has been with Disney for 31 years and has sat on the Washington, D.C.-based American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Engineering and Environment Committee for the past 10 years, first got involved in environmental awareness in the early 1990s, while driving through a Disney campground under construction. Concerned that too many trees were going to be sacrificed, she approached the general manager with her concerns.
“I said, ‘Look if you moved your markers just a few feet, you could save a whole lot of trees, and the people camping would have shade and be a lot happier,” says Green. “I didn’t think he really paid attention, but one week later I got a call from him inviting me to come up and explain to the developers what I had told him.” She did. The developers ended up redesigning the park and saving the trees. “That’s when I realized how much of a difference one person can make.”
Since then, the Disney environmental team, Green and a staff of three, are charged with designing an environmental program for each resort and implementing employee training programs to meet related needs. High on the list is water conservation. According to Green, the company maintains three laundry facilities to service its resorts; between them, they recycle 10 million gallons of water a day. Other reclaimed water is used for irrigation and to hose down roadway areas.
To receive their Green Lodging Certifications, the resorts had to be completely retrofitted with efficient florescent lighting, a task that was both ambitious and costly. “When we started, our goal was to save enough electricity to power the Animal Kingdom in its first year of operation,” says Green. “We did. We saved 49 million kilowatt hours in our first year of compliance.”
Standout hotel: The 1,921-room Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort recently pioneered a controlled lighting and air-conditioning system for its convention spaces, which other hotels in the chain have since adopted. The hotel’s engineering crew installed a custom-made system whereby the lights and room temperature are powered at different levels during the day. After 1 a.m., when the system powers down to a set safety level, it cannot even be manually turned up by the late-night cleaning crew.
Sandals Negril Beach (Jamaica) Resort
& Spa is a champ at saving water.
Sandals Resorts International
Montego Bay, Jamaica
www.sandals.com
Portfolio: 16 properties throughout the Caribbean (including four Beaches resorts)
According to Richard May, group director of environment and safety for Sandals International, the chain’s environmental awareness program began by implementing specific projects to drive employee attention to local and global issues. “Unless employees see their immediate connection to an issue, they don’t respond well to an organization’s directive,” says May. “We begin by telling them the personal cost of consuming 200 gallons of drinking water a day at home, then take it to the hotel’s consumption level and what impact that has on their community. That’s when it hits home.”
And to ensure employee awareness of and commitment to earth-friendly issues, Sandals mandates 24 hours of environmental training annually.
Limiting water consumption tops Sandal’s list of environmental factors. Installing water-efficient shower heads and low-flow nozzles on kitchen faucets, toilets and garden hoses helped the chain reduce consumption by 40 percent last year, according to May. A big factor in that success has been the positive response by guests. “We have a little card in each room advising guests that we are trying to save on water, and that if they don’t need a clean towel, to just hang their used one up,” says May. “It has been almost 100 percent effective.”
With the recycling of material waste still in its infancy in the Caribbean, Sandals has focused on recycling kitchen waste. The chain installed composting equipment at each property. Such facilities generate organic fertilizer used in the properties’ landscaping. To date, the program has cut organic waste by 60 percent.
In addition, Sandals has encouraged its hotels to seek out community partners who might benefit from unused, untouched foods. In Jamaica, properties have partnered with local security companies that have canine divisions. “It costs us nothing to put aside scraps for those companies to feed their dogs,” says May. “And by helping them, we are cutting down on the amount of garbage we generate.”
Another recipient of the mounds of food left untouched on buffet tables are local pig farmers, who sign on for donated kitchen scraps. Once they meet the operating standards required by the island’s Ministry of Health, which monitors the health and well-being of work animals as well as the overall operating standards of each farm, they are welcome to receive the hotels’ generous bounty. “The beauty of that program is the farmers reduce the amount of inorganic feed they give to the pigs, and that saves them money and gives them a higher-quality meat at the end of the day to sell back to us,” says May.
To ensure the farmers maintain compliance with regulatory guidelines, Sandals’ inspectors visit the farms four times a year, unannounced. Next up for the chain, says May, is exploring more energy-efficient technologies to reduce electricity consumption in areas of lighting and air conditioning.
Standout hotel: When a one-day experiment to measure the amount of untouched glasses of water at the 223-room Sandals Negril Beach Resort & Spa’s restaurants tallied up at 55 gallons, the resort instituted a “second glass of water on request” program. That simple initiative has saved the hotel as much as 20,075 gallons of drinking water in one year.
Kimpton’s Hotel Triton
in San Francisco
offers an Eco Floor
where earth-friendly
practices reign.
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
San Francisco
www.kimptonhotels.com
Portfolio: 40 hotels in North America
In 1985, Kimpton was developing a small boutique property in San Francisco, the Galleria Park Hotel, unceremoniously sandwiched between a strip mall and a run-down parking lot. The one green spot in that tough urban landscape was the small neighborhood park on the roof of the parking lot. So when the fledgling hotel company learned the city planned to tear it up as part of a building renovation, they fought city hall to “hang on to those trees that were cleaning the air we all breathed,” says Steve Pinetti, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the brand.
The chain won, and since then, Kimpton has joined with the independent national Trust for Public Land and made that organization’s Parks for People program a companywide initiative. “We began with saving one park,” says Pinetti. “Now, our construction guys are working with renewable resources so we can actually build our hotels from the ground up entirely out of recycled products.”
The Kimpton EarthCare program, which touts “a lifelong commitment to environmental responsibility,” is the axis of the chain’s operating model. And it is not a program of choice for hotels: To be part of the Kimpton chain means to adopt its platform of environmental stewardship. Chainwide, paper products are printed on recycled goods; the entire company uses soy ink; housekeeping cleaning supplies are organic, as is the coffee served.
“When we first started shopping around for environmentally friendly products for our hotels, we were told we would never find anything,” says Pinetti. But the company persevered. “Ultimately, we were able to find enough terrific suppliers who appreciated what we were trying to do, and we negotiated prices we could live with.”
As Pinetti notes, “Anyone who is serious about going green can. It does not have to cost more.”
Kimpton’s commitment to being green has paid dividends in the meetings world among groups with similar values. A recent press release about the company’s three Chicago properties and their emphasis on the environment drew three phone calls in one day from local businesses looking to book groups. “Chicago is a city that generally does not recycle,” says Pinetti. “Quarter of a million dollars worth of business ended up being booked.”
Keeping the green torch burning are Kimpton’s Eco Champions, designated employees at each property who are handpicked to take on-site responsibility for the environmental program the company has outlined for that particular hotel. “It could be a bellman, a secretary, a concierge,” says Pinetti. “What they all have in common is they are on fire for the program, and they pass that along to their colleagues.”
Even as the hotel company earns recognition and awards year after year for its commitment to the environment, Pinetti insists that is not what drives the effort. “If you truly believe in sustainability, it’s not about if you get credit for it,” he says. “You do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Standout hotel: The 140-room Hotel Triton in San Francisco’s Union Square district has designated its seventh floor the Eco Floor, where “eco rooms” feature amenity dispensers that have cut waste by 90 percent vs. disposable bottles; all linens and towels are made from organically grown materials; and every room is outfitted with energy-saving light bulbs and water- and air-purification systems. The hotel, which recycles 60 percent of its waste, was named the state model for California’s Green Lodging Program, launched in 2004.
The Fairmont Banff Springs in
Alberta respects its beautiful
surroundings by recycling waste.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Toronto, Ontario
www.fairmont.com
Portfolio: 44 hotels in eight countries around the world
It has been more than 15 years since Fairmont launched its Green Partnership program, a comprehensive companywide initiative to minimize the impact of its hotels on the environment. Today, the chain is a recognized leader in the hospitality industry on environmental responsibility, and the Green Partnership has racked up awards from the Canadian government and a number of environmental groups and private organizations for its commitment and achievements.
“We have really come a long way,” says Michelle White, manager of environmental affairs for Fairmont. “We have moved beyond focusing on lighting to pushing sustainable energy and how we can offset greenhouse gas emissions.”
Earlier this year, the brand launched wind-powered check-in by purchasing Eco-Logo certified wind power from the Pembina Institute, an independent Canadian environmental policy research and education organization, to run all 249 front desk computers at its North American properties. Fairmont predicts the effort will result in greenhouse gas reduction of almost 100 tons by the middle of next year.
Water conservation, habitat protection and community outreach also feature prominently in the Green Partnership program. At the Fairmont Dubai, all hotel waste water is used for irrigation. At the company’s two Mexico properties, the Fairmont Mayakoba in Cancun and the Fairmont Acapulco Princess, 75 percent of the waste water from laundry operations is recycled and reused in that department. “Think how much water is used in hotel laundry and you really understand what that number means,” says White.
In 2005, Fairmont introduced Greening the Greens to tackle responsible land stewardship of its golf courses. Under that program, which promotes reduced use of pesticides, water testing and maintaining wildlife habitat, four courses have since been certified by Audubon International as part of their Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System. “We saw a need to retain and renew the land and not have it lost as a natural habitat,” notes White. “It’s been an incredible success. Sometimes a golfer at our Banff hotel will look up to see 125 head of free roaming elk, which makes for a very interesting game.”
Green Teams, volunteer groups of employees who meet on a regular basis to access their hotel’s environmental operations, make Fairmont’s Green Partnership so successful, says White. From them, she says, comes a wealth of new and innovative initiatives, which often are incorporated into best practices at other Fairmont properties. The company shows its appreciation with yearly environmental awards for employees, including EnviroStar, a plaudit that recognizes the most influential staff members for their contributions to the Green Partnership.
Standout hotel: The 770-room Fairmont Banff Springs in Alberta recycles used kitchen oil from the cafeteria of a local high school into bio-diesel fuel, which is then used to power all of the property’s landscaping equipment, from lawn mowers to trimmers.
Employees at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel
in Brussels have volunteered to plant trees in the city.
Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts
Brussels, Belgium
www.radissonsas.com
Portfolio: 133 hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
In 2001, Rezidor SAS Hospitality, the parent company of Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, launched its Responsible Business Program to address three core corporate values: Respect the social and ethical issues of every community where the company operates a hotel; protect the health and safety of employees and guests; and reduce the chain’s negative impact on the environment.
Heading up that initiative today is Copenhagen, Denmark-based director Pia Heidenmark-Cook. As the Radisson SAS chain expands its reach into developing countries, such as the Middle East and Africa, she says, the company has been forced to rethink its approach to the environment, while maintaining its commitment.
“We used to give out a manual that outlined actions every hotel had to follow and implement, but we no longer take that approach,” notes Heidenmark-Cook. “Instead, what we have are common objectives that we ask each hotel to strive to achieve. For example, under the old program, we said all hotels had to have energy-efficient light bulbs. Well, for some countries, like Kazakhstan, where we are building a hotel, that mandate would be impossible to comply with, because there are no suppliers in their region.”
Water use, recycling and energy consumption are the three main areas Radisson SAS is targeting on the environmental front. Low-flush toilets and low-use shower heads in bathrooms are part of every new build and are installed in older hotels during renovations. And while recycling laws and capabilities can vary widely from country to country, some 16 different types of waste currently are listed on the company’s recycling books as being sorted and recycled across the portfolio, including items such as glass, cardboard, paper and organic materials, such as food. “In Europe, there is a huge movement to sort more waste and recycle because of landfill problems,” notes Heidenmark-Cook.
Also impressive are Radisson SAS’ efforts to save energy. From 2004 to year-end 2005, chainwide energy consumption dropped 6 percent, a feat, says Heidenmark-Cook, due largely to the increased use of smart technologies, such as on-demand lighting and efficient air-conditioning systems, which allow hotels to limit power in outdoor public spaces, corridors and guest rooms without relying on guests or even employees to be proactive (although employee training remains a major investment in the chain’s efforts to managing environmental impact).
“We started training our employees on environmental responsibility in 2002. There are 22,000 of them, and we have trained 10,000 so far,” notes Heidenmark-Cook. “There is a high turnover of staff in the hotel business, but we are keeping at it. We want everyone trained, because once they are trained, they pass that knowledge on to the next person.”
Standout hotel: At the 281-room Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Brussels, Belgium, employees joined forces during summer 2003 to plant 640 trees in the city to offset carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the hotel’s energy consumption.
Natural Choices
Sustainable Savings