Our team travels regularly to cover events, do remote broadcast, support affiliates around the world, and we have been advocating for higher green standards for hotels. When you consider the many elements of sustainability they touch--from chemicals used to wash and clean, to lighting systems, potentially using local, organic food in their meals and use of renewable energy, they become mini hubs of innovation and efficiency if they retool.
Next time you travel, please give a priority to those hotels who set and maintain high eco-friendly standards, and support those programs while there.
Hotels Embrace Sustainability to Lure Guests and Cut Costs
During his three-night stay, he dispensed with housekeeping.
“I don’t need my bed made every day and can certainly use the same towel three mornings in a row,” he wrote in an email.
Dr. Gitlow was rewarded for his green efforts with 500 Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty points for each night of his stay. Had he not chosen points, he also had the option of receiving a $5 voucher for food.
The program, called Make a Green Choice, allows all guests, not just frequent travelers, to opt out of housekeeping. According to Starwood Hotels and Resorts, approximately 6.4 million guests have participated since 2009.
As the drought in California and the Western states draws increased attention to conservation, hotels are turning to sustainability as a way of both attracting guests and cutting costs.
Hotels have three reasons to pay attention to conservation, according to Steve Jennings, lead consultant for hotels and resorts in the United States at Deloitte: corporate sustainability; better expense management; and consumer interest. A 2013 study by TripAdvisor found that 79 percent of travelers placed an importance on properties that use environmentally minded practices.
Another report released in March by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration showed that while guests were willing to participate in hotel sustainability practices, a greater number of guests join in when hotels offer different types of incentives, which may be charitable or financial.
Those who participate in green programs are generally more satisfied with their stay, according to Rohit Verma, a Cornell University professor who has studied hotel sustainability.
As a result, hotels here and abroad are introducing or augmenting farm-to-table cuisine in restaurants to lower their carbon footprint, providing charging stations for electric vehicles and using kitchen scraps for compost and even recycling cooking oil for experimental biodiesel fuel.
Behind the scenes, hotels are installing energy-efficient light bulbs and digital thermostats and are using recycled water for landscaping. They also are displaying discreet cards in guest rooms about the energy saved by not changing sheets and towels daily.
But they stop short of dictating to guests how to conserve. For example, hotels draw the line at advising guests to take shorter showers.
“Guests typically do whatever they do in their home environment,” said Denise Naguib, vice president for sustainability and supplier diversity at Marriott International.
For the most part, hotels’ green programs are similar across brands.
“The nature of hotel operations make it difficult to really have a significantly superior practice,” said Bjorn Hanson, a professor at the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism at New York University.
Still, like the Starwood loyalty points, some hotel programs are intended to appeal directly to guests.
Following the lead of the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, the Fairmont Washington, D.C., in Georgetown is constructing a home for bees. A 13-foot structure with two large planter boxes and root balls is being built by Donny Parrella, assistant director of engineering at the hotel and a beekeeper. It will house 50 mason bees that will join 100,000 Italian honeybees already in residence since 2009. “It looks like nature,” Mr. Parrella said.
The hotel, concerned with the problem of disappearing bees, uses the insects as an educational tool for local students. And the hotel bakers make honey walnut bread that appears on the hotel menu. The bees’ honey is also a key ingredient in a house cocktail, the Beetini, made with lemon, honey, honey comb, vodka and tequila.
At the Westin Peachtree Plaza, where Dr. Gitlow stayed, groups are offered behind-the-scenes tours to learn about hotel sustainability. Sites include the kitchen, loading dock and laundry. The hotel has conducted seven tours since the beginning of the year.
It held an initial tour in 2013 during the annual conference of the American Society of Association Executives. Kristin Clarke, director of social responsibility for the trade association based in Washington, led the tour as well as a similar one a year earlier at the Omni Dallas Hotel.
She said that the tour made a vivid impression on attendees, who plan conferences for their own trade and nonprofit associations. “When they see 150,000 pounds of laundry, they understand the impact of linen reuse programs,” she said, referring to an average load.
During the tours she asks guests environmental trivia questions. One example: What are the three R’s of recycling? Answer: Reduce, reuse and recycle. She awards prizes, like an LED flashlight made from recycled plastic, for a correct answer.
Still, a hotel’s green intentions can sometimes backfire. Dr. Gitlow said he had stayed in rooms (not at the Westin Peachtree Plaza) with weak water pressure, insufficient lighting and heating systems that do not properly warm a room, making sleep difficult.
As hotels continue to experiment, at least one expert says hotels may extend the concept of their existing concierge floors to sustainability.
“As hotels find ways to be environmentally sensitive, we may see an energy consumption and waste floor,” Mr. Hanson said.
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