EcoGreenHotel

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sponsored the first national energy efficiency contest – a “Biggest Loser” competition to see which commercial building can shed the most energy waste and be declared the most efficient in the country.

The EPA is keeping tabs on 14 final contestants until August 31st, among which are two hotels. They include the Courtyard Marriott San Diego Downtown and the Sheraton Austin Hotel. The 14 buildings also include schools, college dorms, hotels, department stores, a mall, a healthcare center and office buildings. They were selected as finalists from a pool of 200 participants.

EPA’s National Building Competition’s 14 finalists will be judged on their energy performance from September 1, 2009 to August 31, 2010. The energy use of each building is being monitored with EPA’s Energy Star online energy measurement and tracking tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Television personality Bob Harper will provide energy fitness tips for the contestants through a series of videos that will be available on the contest website. The winner will be declared at EPA’s final weigh-in on October 26, 2010.

The Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Downtown is managed by Denver-based Sage Hospitality Resources. Located in the Gaslamp Quarter, the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Downtown is housed in one of the city’s most prominent landmark buildings, the historic San Diego Trust & Savings Bank. The hotel, which currently has an Energy Star rating of 63, plans to win the competition by making key operational changes, including the installation of water restricting devices, motion sensing lighting controls in stairwells and the replacement of all incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs.

Energy Star Challenge

“We are thrilled and honored to be a part of the EPA National Building Competition,” said Jody Blackinton, general manager of the hotel. “There are definitely unique challenges to improving the energy efficiency of a historic property like this and we look forward to seeing how we measure up against other buildings across the nation.”

“Sustainability is good business, plain and simple,” said Chris Alto, the Sheraton’s general manager. “Not only does it help global efforts to make the planet a cleaner place to live, but it also creates meaningful cost reductions for our bottom line. HEI Hotels & Resorts has been a leading proponent of ‘green initiatives’ for some time now, as evidenced by being named a 2010 Energy Star Partner of the Year. Our goal is to continue this mission.”

“Buildings of all shapes and sizes are saving money and energy with help from EPA and Energy Star,” said Jean Lupinacci, director of EPA’s Energy Star Commercial Buildings Program. “We applaud the contestants of EPA’s National Building Competition for taking action to protect the environment and fight climate change.”

In addition to showcasing contestants’ efforts toward energy efficiency, the competition is intended to put the Energy Star program in the spotlight. More than 17,000 companies, schools, colleges, hospitals, municipalities, utilities and other organizations participate in the program.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, buildings in the United States account for 72 percent of electricity consumption, 39 percent of energy use and 38 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Commercial buildings are responsible for 17 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of more than $100 billion per year, says the EPA, which estimates that on average 30 percent of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted.

“It’s time for buildings to tighten their belts and we’re happy to help them go on an energy diet,” said Gina McCarthy, the EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation.

We, at EcoGreenHotel, know the challenges involved to become both an energy efficient and green hotel. Therefore, we’re rooting for both the Courtyard Marriott San Diego Downtown and the Sheraton Austin Hotel and wish them good luck!

As the founder and president of EcoGreenHotel, I am always looking for pioneering ideas and solutions to support hospitality sustainability. A very important part of my search for new ideas and technologies is to spend a part of my weekend catching up with Jason Calacanis and his weekly podcast “This Week in Start Ups”.

The thirteenth episode premiered this past Friday the 28^th of August. Every episode I have viewed has added value to EcoGreenHotel and hopefully to our visitors experience. Episode 13 was no different. This week we have taken two ideas from the show and have added them to the EcoGreenHotel platform.

First off, Jason mentioned a new technology called Tweetmeme which allows visitors the ability to view how many times a blog or a news article has been re-tweeted as well as the ability for our visitors to easily share a story with their Twitter network. We have already added this feature to our blogs as well as the EcoGreenHotel.com News and Trends.

The second tool picked up during the thirteenth episode of TWIST came directly from Jason’s guest Matt Mickiewicz, founder of Sitepoint.com and 99designs.

Today EcoGreenHotel is weeks away from revealing our online store front EcoGreenHotel Store which will be the best selection of sustainable products to support the hospitality industry. By utilizing 99designs we will  have the oppurtunity to have our new logo recreated by multiple designers to give us a choice of professionally produced artwork at a fraction of the price through traditional sources.

There is a third benefit I picked up from the show this week and that is an offer from Jason. The offer is for a $500 Apple gift certificate to purchase the new Iphone 3GS for anyone who provides the best recap of Episode 13. So here you go Jason….

This Week in Start Ups-Episode 13

This Week in Start Ups starts every week with a catchy tune from Kanye West followed by a warm welcoming from your host Jason Calacanis. The show is then broken down into segments and lately Jason has been adding a new segment on a weekly basis. Who knows maybe Episode Thirteen’s, 2 hour and twenty minute timeline might not be sufficient time in the spotlight for the Trump like ego maniac entrepreneur which is Jason Calacanis.

Jason, utilizing his marketing genius starts the show by means of Twitter and his audience to thank his sponsors through @DNAMail, @WebSpy, @ Audible_Com, and @Ustream. Who knows someday he may be he will be thanking @EcoGreenHotel.

Recently the weekly guests have started to be announced at the beginning of the show which this week was Matt Mickiewicz, founder of Sitepoint.com and 99designs.  Matt has been an entrepreneur since high school, when he founded what was the precursor to Sitepoint. Haunted by a previous episode where Jason noted that no start ups come out of our northern neighbors made Jason backpedal as he welcomes the Canadian guest and mentions a few other Canadian companies proven to be worthy of praise as a start up including IStockphoto and RIM.

By moving the introduction of the weekly guest to the beginning of the show allows for the guest to participate in the beginning discussions. Starting this week’s show was an over view and a trailer for “We Live in Public” NY giveaway an upcoming Indy film that Jason plays part in and an offer from Jason to send some Mahalo swag in return for anyone in NYC that can check out the film.

“Ask Jason”, is the next segment of the show where Jason and the very quiet Matt fielded phone calls from entrepreneurs that seek advice from the two proven innovators. Before they take their first call the ever becoming more irritating, visitor produced “Insights from Tyler Jingle” comes blasting over my speakers and shifts the spotlight to Jason’s counterpart Tyler Crowley. In my opinion unless we are trying to build a drinking game out of the show, please give us a little less jingle and a little more of Tyler’s always genuine knowledge.

Jason takes his first caller from the 310 and proves that although Jason may be able to spit out population facts for Canada however he is not familiar with the Maryland area code that surround our capital city of the United States. The self admitted nervous caller asks Jason about the difficulty to launch hardware products as a start up and is provided with some great comments and guidance from the power duo. The following caller brings information about a new start up application that will allow users to produce and upload podcasts in a more efficient manner.

After an interview of this week’s guest, Jason introduces the next segment which is the newly created “Jason’s Shark Tank”, a parity of Sony Pictures new TV Series Shark Tank which premiered on ABC on August 17^th, 2009.

The segment will allow entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their idea to Jason and his weekly guest with a chance that they might bite on their idea. This allows entrepreneurs an incredible opportunity not only to bring some capital into a newly formed operation but also have the involvement of a proven marketing genius that has a proven track record of successful start ups. I believe EcoGreenHotel is a great candidate to maneuver through the “Shark Infested Waters”.

Although this week’s pitch was not a fully baked concept to Jason or Matt, they did provide the caller with some great feedback and did not shut the door on the prospect of further investigation of the concept.

Jason shared his view on what an entrepreneur needs to possess to make them a viable candidate to survive his version of the Shark Tank. Being raised by a bartending father and a mother working hard in the nursing profession, Jason has a respect for hard working individuals. If you are a committed, hard working, self made operator that can turn a nickel into a dollar you may have a shot of making it past the Shark Tank. If you are a donkey that needs a dollar to make a nickel you better call ABC and try to get on that other show.

The news is the next segment of the show where Andrew Warner was brought to the table sitting in for Lon Harris. Andrew, Matt and Jason discussed the latest news topics including Apple’s Snow Leopard, NFL Banning Twitter, Yelp and more.

The homework segment sponsored by Audible and promoted with an Incredible Audible Deal, assigns guests a reading assignment the “Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezerich. This story of the founding of Facebook is a tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal and will give a lucky caller the chance to discuss the book with Jason next episode.

We are so close to wrapping up and I thought maybe just once we might just get through an entire episode without the mentioning of Jimmy “Fails” Wales but the Dead Pool segment prompts Jason to make sure that he mentions his rival for the Thirteenth episode in a row. Luckily for us it was only one time this episode!!!

I hope you all enjoyed a deeper look inside EcoGreenHotel and one of the tools we utilize to Support Hospitality Sustainability.

Take a look at the episode I have recapped by clicking on the link The thirteenth episode, I believe that no matter what you are working on this will be a significant tool for you.

Thank you for your time,

Scott Parisi                    President-EcoGreenHotel                SParisi@EcoGreenHotel.com

It is the kind of approach that maintains the local culture and its tradition and also motivates to conserve the local culture and resources. It involves the local people to maintain their local tradition.

Characteristics of Sustainable Tourism:

• It maintains the local tradition and local culture.
• It points to conserve the resources where one visits.
• It mainly involves the local people and stress upon the tourist places.

For more information, Visit: www.ecogreenhotel.com

The hotel in which you are staying may not be implementing the best practices. Guests can play a major part in making Hotels implement practices that help hotels go green.

The suggestions from the guest side could be:

1. Implementation of linen reuse program

2. Use of fluorescent lighting

3. Use of low flow showerhead

Guests do make a difference to Hotels as the main motto of Hotels is to customer satisfaction. Guests can help hotels to go green every time they travel. Green practices will help in energy and water conservation and make the Earth a better planet to live. Go Green Campaign should be followed even in Homes and not just in Hotels as it will make your homes more energy efficient. Hotels should implement the Go Green Campaign because satisfied hotel guests help to encourage Tourism.

For more information visit: www.ecogreenhotel.com