Take it from Hema Patel: You should probably plan in advance when deciding to open a LEED-certified building.

Patel is owner and operator of Courtesy Management, a family-owned hotel and property management company in South Carolina. The company’s Holiday Inn & Suites in West Columbia, S.C., wasn’t initially designed to meet the environmental standards of the U.S. Green Building Council’s certifications. But that changed.

“We did everything absolutely the wrong way,” Patel said, explaining that she had never even heard of LEED when the project started about two years ago. But her daughter mentioned it and convinced her to look into it.

“I thought, ‘Sounds expensive,’” Patel said. “Then I went to a meeting and thought, this is the way to go. This is where I think all businesses should be headed.”

Patel shared her experiences with sustainability at the Buyer Interactive Trade Alliance and Conference (BITAC) Purchasing & Design West at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.

After making the decision, Patel said she had a meeting with the architect and contractor to redesign everything and put new systems in. And it did cost more than she anticipated — but that’s because change orders and other after-the-fact decisions drove costs up and could have been avoided with planning.

The hotel will realize the economic benefits of going green. Patel said her guideline was that if a green upgrade did not provide a payback within five years, they did not purchase it. They also found inexpensive ways to achieve water conservation such as sink aerators. Those small things compliment larger items such as the rainwater harvesting system that collects water from the roof and the condensation from the HVAC system and stores it in a massive underground tank.

“I feel being green is good for business as the consumer becomes more knowledgeable about it,” Patel said. “And we’re seeing more buzz on green and sustainability.”

Cost still remains a major challenge to hotels adopting eco-friendly practices. In a real-time poll of BITAC attendees, 52 percent cited cost as the reason more hoteliers have not embraced sustainability.

Gary Coward, president of sales at Concept Amenities, which makes biodegradable bath amenity packaging, said hoteliers should rethink how they look at costs. Instead of looking at the upfront costs, they should consider the cost of not becoming eco-friendly.

“If you don’t start to develop your philosophy in your hotel or business to be green, you will start losing business,” he said. “That will be a far greater cost when you are trying to play catch up.”

He pointed to the new generations of hotel guests — Gen Xers and Millennials — and said they will seek out properties with a green component.

“They’re far smarter,” he said. “They’re not going to do what we’ve done to this planet. They will be the decision makers and will be driven to properties that have a sustainable conscious.”

Lorraine Francis, owner/principal at Cadiz Design Studio who sits on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council, noted that the business case for green is compelling. The challenge is to get the information out to the decision-makers, like people at BITAC.

“This isn’t about guilt,” she said.

In the BITAC poll, another 30 percent of attendees said hoteliers haven’t developed green strategies because they lack education on the subject and don’t know where to begin.

Ray Burger, president of green consultancy Pineapple Hospitality, said he often hears these reasons from clients.

“People that come to us say, ‘We don’t know where to start,’” he said. “We say start with educating yourself, then start with educating your staff.”

The proliferation of green certification organizations can also confuse hoteliers, as well as guests who don’t know what they stand for and are uncertain about their authenticity.

Burger advised hoteliers to seek out certification programs that AAA has approved as well a the programs that the American Hotel & Lodging Association recognizes. That considerably culls the number of programs to consider.

Working with local utility companies can also provide guidance. Many have rebate programs for energy-saving technology, and they can also share tips on how to lower bills.

When Patel contacted her local utility company, she learned that they charged based on the peak usage, not an average of energy use. So Patel made operational changes to even out the property’s energy consumption. Housekeepers will not dry laundry in the mornings when guest usage of energy is at its peak.

When your properties are located in places such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, sustainability is not an option. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which operates park-based hotels, restaurants and stores, has green practices written into its contracts, according to Joel Andrew Southall, director of environmental affairs at Xanterra South Rim in the Grand Canyon.

Southall said the guests who visit their properties intrinsically care about the environment, so green has to be part of Xanterra’s business. He noted that the company has solar facilities at five properties as well as a wind turbine at a property in Ohio.

Southall predicted that green will hardly be limited to properties like his in the future.

“Sustainability will become a default standard operating procedure,” he said. “It’s not going to be a separate field.”

Source: Courtesy Management