In recent weeks, five states and one city have launched green lodging certification programs. I know there are those out there who are not happy about the addition of more green lodging certification programs to our industry, but I am excited for New York, Oklahoma, Indiana, South Carolina, Maryland, and Buffalo, N.Y. Congratulations to those who have worked so hard to put together these programs.

In the latest move to expand its sustainability efforts, Marriott International Inc. says its green hotel portfolio will grow tenfold in the next five years with the introduction of design prototypes for new green properties.

The company is targeting its limited service line — the brands that primarily serve business travelers — in seeking pre-certification of prototype designs through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED volume certification program, Marriott executives said in announcing their plans at the Greenbuild 2009 conference.

LG Electronics yesterday announced a new partnership with Waste Management that aims to keep thousands of now-outdated displays out of landfills.

The two firms are teaming up to recycle televisions and computer monitors from hundreds of hotels around the country, as the lodging industry embraces flat-panel and high-definition televisions for guestrooms; the two companies expect to collect and responsibly recycle thousands of displays during the first year of the partnership alone.

A significant gap lies between consumers’ attitudes towards “green” initiatives in the hospitality industry and their actual behavior, says a recent study by two hospitality and tourism management graduate students at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. Moreover, consumers who engage in environmentally friendly behavior at home behave differently when staying at a hotel, their study found.

Just since Labor Day, greener hotel operations are being stimulated by new programs in five states and one city that have joined the growing movement to environmentally friendly accommodations.

New certifications for green hotels are now available in Indiana, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and the city of Buffalo, New York.

Disney Ranks Dirtiest, Holland America Best in First-Ever Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card from Friends of the Earth
Source: Friends of the Earth

Today Friends of the Earth issued the first-ever Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card, an assessment of the environmental and human health footprint of cruise lines and ships operating in the United States.

Millions of Americans take cruise vacations every year. Travelers may not realize that taking a cruise is more harmful to the environment and human health than many other forms of travel.

“For the first time, vacationers can decide which cruise to take based on a ship’s environmental and human health impacts,” said Marcie Keever, Clean Vessels Campaign Director at Friends of the Earth. “Typically, cruise ship passengers are attracted to cruise vacations with pictures of pristine waters and promises of unspoiled scenery and abundant wildlife, but these passengers are never told that their vacation could leave a dirty mark on the places they visit. This is something travelers should pay close attention to: half of the cruise lines we evaluated earned grades of C- or below.”

Cruise ships carrying up to 7,000 passengers and crew are like floating cities that release substantial amounts of pollution into the air and water. Cruise ships have the potential to despoil the very areas they visit and passengers often ask whether there are any cruise lines or ships that are environmentally friendly.

Friends of the Earth’s report card ranks 10 major lines—Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean Int’l, and Silversea Cruises—according to three environmental criteria: sewage treatment technology, air pollution reduction, and water quality compliance in Alaskan waters. Holland America, Norwegian and Princess come out on top, and Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney are rated the worst.

+ Full Report (PDF; 289 KB)

As its license plates proclaim, Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Now a Minneapolis-area company says it has figured out the secret to the state’s famously crystalline watering holes: moss.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) recently launched several initiatives to engage members and the traveling public in greening the hospitality industry, including a Green Partner Program, GreenQuest tracking system, and Green Tips for Travelers. All information is online via the AH&LA Green Resource Center Web site.

As both a response to and a driver for the greening of the hospitality industry, the American Automobile Association will include in its 2010 TourBooks an “eco” icon for hotels, motels and other lodgings that are green certified.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts are adding eco-friendly IT strategies to the company’s Green Partnership environmental program and are developing power management, procurement and recycling plans for their facilities.

Radisson(R) Hotels & Resorts today announced the opening of the Radisson Plaza Mississauga Toronto Airport, a USD 24 million, 100-room, all-suite hotel located at 175 Derry Road East in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The hotel was recently recognized with a Four Key rating by the Eco Rating program from the Hotel Association of Canada as a hotel that has taken significant steps to protect the environment.

Nanotechnology has a vital role to play in making hotels more sustainable, according to Claude Bérubé, design advisor to Sheikh Khaled Al Qassimi, director general of Sharjah Public Works.

A contest sponsored by an airliner maker is looking for good ideas to make air travel greener. For each passenger mile chalked up air travel is the worst producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Walking barefoot would be the best, of course. So getting greener would be a sweet tnhing for airlines to consider.
European plane maker Airbus has invited student engineers to propose green innovations for commercial air travel.

Nokia has a great green travel resource that is up in beta mode called Green Explorer. It is geared specifically for people who want to travel in an eco-friendly fashion and provide their own travel tips, and the site has quite a few features that can make it a top resource when it comes out of beta.

Compared to hotels abroad, the American hospitality industry does not yet have much of a culture of saving resources — but some say changes are coming.

In a major initiative to reduce energy and carbon emissions significantly, the New York Marriott Downtown, a 500-room full-service Marriott hotel managed by Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR) and owned by Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc., celebrated the inauguration of its new “microturbine farm” with a ribbon cutting on June 3, 2008 in Lower Manhattan.

More chain and boutique hotels — with views of skyscrapers not trees — are incorporating sustainable green practices into their policies.

Alpine Waste & Recycling, Commerce City, Colo., has offered to reward Denver-area hotels with one month of free recycling service for every month they divert at least 50 percent of their waste from local landfills. The offer is in collaboration with Denver’s efforts to promote environmentalism during the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

Going green may be more expensive up front. It may be complex for those seeking certification. It may be hard to rationalize as a specific demand generator. But, it is not going away. “In this social environment, it is less and less likely any hotel company or independent hotel will fail to have some kind of sustainability programs. No one can opt out,” says Chris Cahill, president and COO, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI), Toronto.

“A former U.S. congressman, U.S. ambassador and industry veterans announced on Jan. 17 the launch of a non-profit organization to promote green energy and sustainability,” said Zacharie Mondel, the group’s chief operating officer.

Called the Global Green Energy Consortium (GGEC), the group is headlined by former U.S. Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., and former U.S. Ambassador Osman Siddique, along with representatives from the hospitality and green energy sectors.

How safety, health and environmental (SH&E) professionals are working to eliminate or reduce risks connected to “greening” efforts are featured in the new American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Hospitality Branch’s “Safety Implications of Greening” white paper.

In what could be a potential boon for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) California Condor Recovery Program, the owner of Tejon Ranch — the largest private game preserve in California — announced the banning of lead bullets in time for the 2008 hunting season. Tejon Ranch stretches across the southern San Joaquin Valley and is frequented by the critically endangered condors foraging for carcasses on its 270,000 acres. Ranch president Robert Stine announced the ban last March, convinced that the ammunition is poisoning North America’s largest flying land bird.

Reno, Nevada — The “Biggest Little City in the World” is bedazzled with neon and packed with all-you-can-eat buffets and quarter slots. It’s a tourist destination for those looking for all the perks of Vegas on a smaller, family-friendly scale. But the greater Reno-Tahoe area may soon be better known as a hub for renewable energy innovation. Nevada’s unprecedented, all-encompassing approach to “green” energy issues set an example for other states to unleash their own clean energy potentials.

Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. (RCCL) has contracted with Imperium Renewables to buy a minimum of approximately 15 million gallons of biodiesel in 2007 and thereafter approximately 18 million gallons of biodiesel annually for four years with an option for a three-year extension.

In its S-1/A filing with the SEC, Imperium said that it believes this is the single-largest long-term biodiesel sales contract to an end user in the US. The RCCL contract is also the the only major long-term biodiesel customer contract that Imperium has, and its expects the contract to account for a substantial portion of its 2007 and 2008 revenue.

The specifications cover several types of machines in both categories, requiring them to meet maximum energy and water efficiency savings.  Other Energy Star commercial food service products include fryers, steam cookers, hot food holding cabinets, and solid door reach-in refrigerators and freezers.

Restaurant and commercial kitchen owners and operators will be able to purchase Energy Star qualified commercial dishwashers starting Oct.11, 2007 and ice makers starting Jan. 1, 2008.  Over the next five years, these new Energy Star products are expected to save restaurants $100 million  in reduced energy and water costs. These products will help improve the energy intensity of food service buildings, which consume roughly 2.5 times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings.

Energy Star was started by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. In 2006 alone, Americans with the help of Energy Star saved $14 billion on their energy bills and reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 25 million vehicles.

New specification for commercial dishwashers: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=new_specs.comm_dishwashers

More on Energy Star-qualified commercial dishwashers: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=comm_dishwashers.pr_comm_dishwashers

New specification for ice machines: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=new_specs.ice_machines

More on Energy Star-qualified ice machines: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=comm_ice_machines.pr_comm_ice_machines

Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy designed to save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.

Energy Star: http://www.energystar.gov

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov

U.S. Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov

The Graycote Inn in Bar Harbor, Maine is a bed and breakfast in a sprawling, historic 1881 Victorian, with lace canopies on the beds and wood-burning fireplaces — a five-minute drive from the seasonal splendors of Acadia National Park. It’s also the greenest bed & breakfast (b&b) in Bar Harbor. Last year, the Graycote became the first lodging provider in its area to win the Environmental Leader Certification from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection after owners Roger and Pat Samuel brought everything from the aging furnace to the bathroom fixtures up to exacting green standards.

Major hotel chains, big consumers of resources such as power and water, are starting to change their environmentally wasteful ways and design “greener” buildings.

Although most of the efforts are in their infancy, Hilton, Marriott and Wyndham are encouraging the building of eco-friendly and energy-efficient hotels.

An online forum has been created to encourage open dialogue on the issues that need to be addressed on climate change. The forum also draws input concerning environmental good practice, working hand in hand with sustainable communities, nations and business.

Industry leaders, experts, governments and other stakeholders are invited to join the dialogue and to share their views by visiting www.globaltraveltourism.com/environment.

Travel & Tourism leaders, from both the public and private sector, will gather to reflect on the online dialogue and to discuss the issues at the 7th Global Travel & Tourism Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, May 10 – 12, 2007.

March 22, 2007 – Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly one-fifth over a ten year period from 2000 to 2010 – approaching one million tons of climate warming gases, or the equivalent of taking nearly 140,000 cars off the roads. This industry leading effort is part of a comprehensive global campaign to reduce Marriott’s environmental footprint and save energy costs.

In April, all 2,800 hotels in nearly 70 countries will also help Marriott celebrate Environmental Awareness Month, marking the company’s biggest effort to promote eco-friendly practices on the road, at work, at home and in the community.

Marriott International, Inc. announced today that it is the first lodging company to receive the 2007 ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Marriott is being recognized in an awards ceremony tonight for its continued leadership in protecting the environment through energy management.

Today’s hotels are trying for a new kind of audience: those who put their bucks where their beliefs are. And if you’re thinking “green,” chances are you want to stay green when you travel, too.

There is a growing trend in the lodging industry to ask guests to reuse their sheets and towels for a few days to help the environment.

You’ve probably seen the eco-notes left in the rooms.

One Washington DC landmark is taking this program even further and hoping to demonstrate the hospitality of going green.

Articles in the October 2006 ESSD Bulletin include:

• Michigan Receives National Environmental Awards
• Michigan Clean Marina Program Continues to Grow
• DEQ Employee 2006 Planner of the Year
• New Green School Local Certification
• New Transportation Regulatoins for Infectious Substances
• Confetti String Destruction Ordered by EPA
• Green Lodging Web Site Is Live!
• Compliance Assistance Corner:  Do I need a permit to withdraw water from my inland lake?
• Facility Sustainability Reporting Project
• Publications
• Events

Let there be no more illusions about green building entering the mainstream.

In June, construction crews broke ground on two massive green building developments along the west side of the world-famous Las Vegas Strip. The Cosmopolitan, a resort casino with condos developed by 3700 Associates LLC, is likely to be completed first, opening its doors in 2008.

Sometimes, it’s just amazing what you find as a “by-product” of looking for something else. This week’s resource popped up in a web search I did for “green power“. The title looked so interesting that I just had to click on it and explore further. You’ll want to check this one out if you work with environmental information or are environmentally conscious.

The Sustainable Tourism Resource Database
Source: North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation