EcoGreenHotel

Organic cotton to bamboo, these are the threads you should know about.

When it comes to purchasing your linens, you have the power to make a difference. It’s up to us,consumers including green hotel purchasers, to buy from companies that will create a shift in the market for our environment and long-term health.

You should know that not only are chemicals in the foods that we eat, but they are also found in our upholsteries, blankets, bed sheets and clothes. More and more, people are experiencing health problems such as rashes, allergies, respiratory and concentration problems due to chemical sensitivities. This adds to the growing demand of “green” hotel guest rooms.

So what makes fabric “eco-friendly”? Wikipedia defines eco-friendly (as well as environmentally friendly, nature friendly and green) to be used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies considered to inflict minimal to no harm to the environment.

“Green” fabrics, for the most part, include any fabric made from sustainable or organic natural materials using fewer chemicals, sustainable operations and environmentally supportive manufacturing methods. Green fabric is also used to describe recycled fabric.

Lets focus on the following four eco-friendly fabrics. Keep in mind, these aren’t the only eco-friendly fabrics available – we’ve chosen these to start with.

1–Organic cotton: is weaved from non-genetically modified plants. It is certified as grown without the use of any synthetic agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizers or pesticides. It doesn’t damage the quality of the cotton or the land and surrounding ecology.

2– Organic linen with flax fibers: True organic linen is created with flax fibers. It comes in the color of a natural cream or light tan since pure white is only achieved through bleaching. Although it wrinkles easily, it is a great hot-weather fabric because it absorbs moisture without getting damp, thus drying quickly and cooling the skin. If you accept the wrinkle look charm, keep in mind flax fiber is stronger than cotton fiber and is less elastic.

3–Hemp: Ok, so it’s still illegal to grow hemp in the Unities States due to its association with marijuana. However, legislation is in the works to change. Right now it’s grown elsewhere in the world and, unfortunately, this increases it’s carbon footprint. Nonetheless, hemp products are manufactured in the U.S.

As for the hemp itself, it’s grown easily and is environmentally friendly. The fibers are mildew-resistant, antimicrobial, UV protecting and even fire proof. This makes it an ideal candidate for fabrics that get a lot of use, but it isn’t the softest option around.

4–Soy: It’s softer than cotton, much more durable, warm, absorbent, and lightweight. Made out of discarded tofu, it’s considered the ultimate sustainable fiber and sometimes referred to as “vegetarian cashmere” – “cashmere” due to its softness and luxurious appeal.

So how do you make fiber out of tofu, you ask? Well, leftovers from tofu manufacturing are gathered, liquefied, and extruded through spinnerets to create filaments that are spun into fine yarns. (Fun fact: Henry Ford first investigated the use of soy in textiles for his automobile in the 1940’s, but the arrival of synthetics on the scene stole the show – however it’s now being rediscovered).

Side note: There is much controversy around the use of bamboo for fabrics and products. Therefore, keep an eye out for EcoGreenHotel’sbamboo pros and cons article to help hotel operators make a well-informed decision.

Our GREEN TEAM series is coming to a close soon. We’ve covered numerous topics on how to engage your employees in sustainability, now we’ll take a look at how leading companies are engaging their customers through different mediums and a quick idea on how you can create a green tool kit

Engage Customers to be Part of the Solution

Without customers, you can’t run a business. What would happen if you work together to achieve a goal? eBay realized the most powerful thing they could do as a company would be to invite their consumers into the equation. Many of their customers have green values—when they opened the eBay Green Team (ebay.com/greenteam), 40,000 people signed up over night. The Green Team, along with their corporate commitment to sustainability, has strengthened relationships with their customers and helped them achieve an authentic green identity in the marketplace.

Whether it’s a top down or bottom up approach, at one point or another you can’t avoid your guest’s needs. Start taking action by creating a Green Team at your hotel and explore creative ways you can engage your guests during their stay and away. Create a space for them to express themselves about your initiatives and allow them to make recommendations or participate in one way or another. Who knows, they might have some good ideas too.

As part of Intuit’s sustainability strategy, which reaches millions of small businesses with its software programs, have made a commitment to helping their customers be more sustainable. They developed Green Snapshot, a new free tool to help small businesses quickly and easily estimate a company’s carbon footprint and identify recommended actions to shrink it, saving customers money in the process.

Simple idea from Yahoo!. They make green relevant to its consumers through Yahoo! for Good, a campaign that offers tips and resources for going green, and Yahoo! Green, one of the most popular environmental sites on the Web. I’ve seen many hotels take this idea and incorporate it into their own green hotel initiative.

Use Art to Raise Awareness

Here are a few examples of how Yahoo! and eBay raised company awareness.

At Yahoo!, “Chuck the Cup” Day was held at four of their campuses to raise awareness about the environmental impact of using paper cups and highlight the things employees can do to create a more sustainable workplace. The project is the brainchild of Kai Haley, a Yahoo! Green Team member and the “Andy Goldsworthy “ of trash. She calculated how many paper cups are consumed every 15 minutes on Yahoo!’s main campus and created hexagon globes out of thrown away cups.

Along with providing incentives to encourage employees to bring their own mug, Yahoo! put the attention‐getting sculptures that Kai created on their main lawn, each of them representing the number of coffee cups (over 100) used in 15 minutes at their headquarters.

One of eBay’s local Green Teams was determined to phase bottled water out of their office. Prior to installing filters and chillers and removing water bottles from break rooms, they invited employees’ children to participate in a poster contest with the theme “what does water mean to you?” Winning posters were displayed around the office, along with facts and statistics to educate employees on the environmental impact of bottled water production and consumption. The team credits the poster campaign with increasing awareness and support for the project and allowing for a successful transition.

Create a Toolkit to Support and Guide Green Teams

To make it easier for your Green Team (or all your employees), consider cmpling a “Greening Toolkit.” For example, Deloitte’s green program toolkit includes 37 suggested best practices and greening projects, focused on energy consumption, paper consumption, daily product consumption, waste reduction, recycling and travel.

The program is monitored through a “Greening the Dot” Web site, which charts the number of toolkit projects that have been completed, kicking up competition between office locations. In the first six months, over half of the workforce engaged in the implementation of over a thousand greening projects across nearly 100 offices, and reducing energy, water, paper use and travel and increasing recycling.

In the end, they saved resources, reduced waste and realized savings. Everyone won! Being sustainable justmakes economical sense.

Next months newsletter will close this series with: Alighn Green Teams with Corporate Sustainability Goals. Don’t miss it!

Is that possible? Hotel Andaluz in Albuquerque, New Mexico, claims they’ve done just that. Reopening after a $30 million remodel, the Andaluz reduced their water use by 78% with their water savings program.

The Andaluz, which previously existed as the La Posada hotel, was extensively remodeled according to LEED standards. In order to cut water use, the Andaluz developers implemented numerous water and energy saving conservation measures, including:

1. “Oxygen-assisted” low-flow shower heads
2. Rainwater collection system for irrigation (in process)
3. Efficient low-flow toilets
4. Solar panels to heat about 60% of the hotel’s hot water (which will cut energy use by 20%)
5. Guestroom controls
6. Fluorescent and LED lighting

The result, in May 2004 the La Posada used 1.2 million gallons of water. In May 2005, the last year of operation before remodel, La Posada used 730,000 gallons in a month. After remodel, in May 2010, the Andaluz significantly reduced usage to 300,000 gallons of water. Although this is one month, it doesn’t dictate what the new hotel will average through the months to come, especially considering it’s a new hotel. Looking at eight different months of usage over the years, the new hotel averaged 770,000 gallons less than its predecessor La Posada.

Lets put that into perspective. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection estimates a hotel to average around 200 gallons per room per day. Assuming these numbers, Andaluz, in its best month, used 300,000 gallons in a month, which is 10,000 gallons each day – and with 107 rooms and suites, it averages around 93 gallons each day per room. That is better than the low average.

Andaluz took on aggressive green measures, including energy efficiency, in its remodel and operations that the hotel is applying for LEED gold status (it had previously aimed for silver). Once certified, it will be one of the first historically renovated gold LEED hotels in the U.S. -

Visit Green Hotel Directory for more green hotels.

It’s been four months since the launch of the EPA’s National Building Competition and fourteen contestants have been in fierce battle to win! They’re at the midpoint of the first-ever national contest to reduce their energy use. Currently, there is only a one percent margin that separates the leader from the next contestant.

The fourteen contestants have together reduced their energy consumption by over 24 billion Btu and reduced their carbon dioxide emissions equal to the electricity use of 330 homes for a year – impressive would be an understatement! By shedding the energy waste, the incredible energy savings are also piling up.

The top 5 as of the mid-point are:

1. UNC’s Morrison Hall (Chapel Hill, NC)
2. Sears (Glen Burnie, MD)
3. 1525 Wilson Blvd (Arlington, VA)
4. JCPenney (Orange, CA)
5. VanHolten Primary School (Bridgewater, NJ)

The Courtyard Marriott San Diego Downtown is currently in 10th placereducing their energy usage by 3% while the Sheraton Austin Hotel is lagging behind in 13th place with a -.08% reduction. It isn’t the winner’s spot, but at the end of the day both hotels have won regardless of their ranking– a healthy environment for themselves and guests, guest satisfaction, environmental stewardship, better future for all, and energy savings to name a few. Just as San Diego’s team name, Money in the Bank, implies – triple bottom line savings!

But whether or not they’ve made it to the top, five of the contestants have increased their ENERGY STAR energy performance score by more than 10 points; three contestants are eligible for the ENERGY STAR label and several more are within striking distance. And they still have less than three more months of savings to go before the winner is announced!

The contestants have pursued a wide range of effective projects that focus on energy efficiency improvements in the areas of operations and maintenance, technology upgrades, and raising awareness. Each property started with the basics like changing out inefficient light bulbs with highly efficient CFL and LED lighting, but as the competition has gotten very close, they had to step it up a notch. Properties have implemented energy efficient strategies although they won’t disclose their secrets.

Wishing all the contestants best of luck (but of course, we’d like to see our hotel friends win!).

See the complete list of the midpoint ranks go to http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=buildingcontest.contestants

Save Money while Maintaining a Beautiful and Healthy Landscape

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. –

Green Hotels want to make sure their lawn and landscape stays healthy and beautiful for the enjoyment of guests and improved occupancy rates. They must also think about controlling utility rates and being environmentally friendly.

Overwatering of landscape is often the major water waste culprit for a hotel property. But now, you no longer have to “guess” how long each watering zone should be operating thanks to the SmartLine System offered by Weathermatic, a global manufacturer and service provider of water conservation solutions for the outdoors since 1945.

EcoGreenHotel recognizes Weathermatic’s weather based watering technology that has proven to be an economical choice for properties of any size.

George Kenney of Soundview Landscape has installed SmartLine for several properties in Hawaii. “SmartLine has changed the way we irrigate properties,” Kenney states. “[When] we converted the landscaping at a condominium to SmartLine, the water savings have been so dramatic that the resort has asked to convert additional sites. If the next six months are equal to the first six months, the property will realize a savings of six million gallons in the first year of system operation.”

How Does It Work
Simply stated, it is a thermostat for the landscape. The SmartLine System replaces existing sprinkler timers that operate like the old egg timer.

It uses weather readings from a small, on-property weather station to automatically calculate precise run times for the plants in each zone using a proven evapotranspiration formula. It also uses sprinkler precipitation rates, soil type, and slope to apply water in run and soak cycles at a rate the soil can accept to prevent polluted runoff. In addition,” Brodie Bruner, VP Marketing and Sales for Weathermatic, notes, “this technology eliminates the need to have lawn maintenance crews manually adjusting controllers to match ever-changing weather conditions.”

Real Dollar and Water Savings
“More than 200,000 properties in over 80 countries are now using SmartLine,” saidBruner, “with SmartLine water savings ranging from 20 to over 60%.“

“The comforting part about converting existing controllers to SmartLine,” Bruner explains, “is that a typical installation can be accomplished in a few hours without any disturbance to existing landscaping or interruption of property use for your guests. Most importantly, this high efficiency system results in a return on investment of typically 12 months or less.”

You Only Know What You Measure
Weathermatic can provide a SmartLine Water Management Service that includes access to monthly reports detailing site-specific water savings and performance compared to water usage goals considering the actual weather conditions. This service,” Bruner explains, “acts both as a monitoring device and provides analysis to verify the entire irrigation system is working properly.”

Alen Hinckley, Yorkshire West Realty Advisors, saw the payback in less than three months and saved almost 4 million gallons of water after a year. With an effective annual 70% reduction, their group is rolling out SmartLine on all their properties. “It’s a no brainer,” said Alen.

SmartLine controllers are available in sizes for any property with configurations for wall mounting or pedestal installation. They can be wired or wireless for flexibility in mounting locations on any property. Several remote control options are available to insure easy irrigation field maintenance for landscape crews.

(and One Convenient Place to Find Them All)

Today’s environmentally-conscious, well-informed travelers expect green hotels to do more than just provide a comfortable place to stay.  They want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the green hotel they’ve chosen for their business or leisure accommodations practices energy efficiency, and that it’s resourceful and earth-friendly in every conceivable way.

As a green hotel professional, it’s your job to fulfill your guests’ expectations and even exceed them whenever you can. To help you get the job done, we’ve put together a list of products that will not only make your guest’s smile, but they’ll also be good to your green hotel’s bottom line.

• Organic Personal Care Products in Biodegradable Packaging: The Save Your World line of hotel amenities offers all natural organic products packaged in an earth-friendly way. Your guests will love the fresh tropical scents and luscious feel of these superior green hotel amenities.
• 100% Bamboo Bed Linens: Your green hotel guests will have no problem sleeping at night knowing they’re snuggled into luxurious sheets made from rapidly renewable, pesticide-free and ultra-soft bamboo.
• Eco-Friendly Cleaners: Super concentrated, hydrogen peroxide-based cleaners like Proxi are not only safe and highly effective, they can also save your green hotel a ton of money. It takes just one ounce of Proxi to make a full quart of some of the best hard surface cleaner you’ll ever use in your green hotel – and it’s earned the Green Seal certification to prove it!
• Safe Pesticides: Fighting and preventing bed bugs with toxic chemicals just isn’t on the agenda of any eco hotel. Instead, green hotels everywhere trust all natural, pesticide-free Rest Easy Bed Bug Spray to safely rid their rooms of these nasty biting parasites, once and for all.
• Recycled Key Cards: When your hotel front desk staff hands over one of these Green Earth renew Key Cards at check in, your guests will know without a doubt that eco-consciousness is not just a slogan at your green hotel. Made from 100% recycled PVC and printed with soy-based ink, these customizable, reusable cards will last and last.

Sourcing affordable, high-quality products like these for your green hotel can sometimes seem like a wild goose chase.  But the EcoGreenHotel Store makes it easy to find, order and re-order your favorite green hotel products and services – everything from the five products listed above to bath hardware and accessories, lighting, furnishings, pool care, food service and recycling supplies, and much, much more – all in one friendly and convenient online store.

So get out your shopping list and stop by at EcoGreenHotelStore.com today.  The doors are always open, the shelves are always full of great products, and the eco-deals are always hot!

Each year, billions of dollars are spent to control or curtail the effects of odor.  We mask it.  We cover it up.  We try almost anything to kill it.  And we spend our money on solutions that don’t really work, but do end up increasing the amount of toxic chemicals in our lives.

No more.  Because the hospitality industry can finally put an end to the practice of using ineffective, toxic chemicals to control odor and instead use a simple, permanent and non-toxic solution based on the active ingredients used in hydro-therapy and water purification to end odor forever.

Zero Odor is a new technology platform in odor control.  It actually permanently eliminates odor on a molecular level by seeking out and bonding with odor molecules, turning them into non-odor molecules.

Essentially all foul and unpleasant odors have a common denominator:  they all contain either a sulfur or nitrogen-family molecule in their make-up.  The active ingredients in Zero Odor form an irreversible bond with sulfur or nitrogen in gaseous form, which means that any odor that Zero Odor touches is gone forever.

“We got the samples of Zero Odor and let me tell you, housekeeping loves the product!” says Stephanie A. the Assistant Manager of the Golden Bear Inn.  “I also notice the difference in the rooms, walking into the rooms there are no lingering smells of anything.  It’s like magic!”

Zero Odor is formulated to leave no scent or fragrance behind – only clean, crisp smelling air.  There is a slight “tracer scent” embedded in the product to help consumers know where they have sprayed, but very soon the tracer scent also disappears.

Zero Odor is available in 22 and 66 oz sizes through the Eco Green Hotel Store. As the product of organic chemistry, the active ingredients in Zero Odor are non-toxic and biodegradable in the environment.  Packaging for Zero Odor is 100% recyclable.

The Benefits of using Zero Odor:

• Remove odor on a permanent basis and refresh rooms
• Save by avoiding costly room renovations or replacing items with embedded odor problems
• Works on fabric, solid surfaces, in the air
• Non-Toxic; biodegradable; recyclable

Company Develops New Energy Efficiency Program for the Hospitality Industry

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. – EcoGreenHotel President, Scott Parisi, announced the launch of his company’s new Energy Efficiency Analysis program, or E2A, designed to help green hotels assess their exact energy usage and develop cost-effective ways to reduce it.

“As other industries look to reduce their negative impacts on the environment, hotels have struggled to do the same without it having an adverse effect on the guest experience and the bottom line. Energy efficiency programs that have been good for other industries have not necessarily been applicable to hospitality for those reasons,” Parisi said. “Our goal was to develop a hospitality-specific program for evaluating and increasing the energy efficiency of hotels without sacrificing guest satisfaction or the hotel’s financial wellbeing, and we’ve achieved that with E2A.”

The energy efficiency process begins with EcoGreenHotel analyzing a year’s worth of each property’s utility bills using ENERGY STARS benchmarking system. An EcoGreenHotel E2A professional conducts an on-site visit to evaluate the property’s operations and efficiency. EcoGreenHotel then creates a customized, cost-effective energy efficiency strategytaking industry-specific factors, property specifics and region into account.

Once the analysis is complete, each hotel receives a comprehensive report, a cost-benefit breakdown for each of the recommended Energy Conservation Measures (ECM’s), a five-year cash flow analysis for each of the ECM’s, and a list of federal, state, local and utility-sponsored rebates, grants, incentives and loans that will help pay for them.

“Our mission is to encourage greater energy efficiency throughout the hospitality industry, and our new partnership with EPA’s ENERGY STAR Program will greatly enhance that effort,” Parisi said.

“Another thing that sets EcoGreenHotel’s E2A program apart is that it’s completely vendor neutral,” Parisi said. “Our recommendations for products, services and technology are based solely upon our clients’ best interests, and nothing more. We guarantee that each E2A program will result in an actionable plan that will save our clients money, lessen the impact on the environment and improve cash flow.”

To learn more about EcoGreenHotel’s E2A program, visit Energy Efficiency Analysis for Green Hotels.

By Jeff Kiec, Director of Sustainability – EcoGreenHotel

In today’s strenuous economic conditions, hotels are looking for every advantage to increase occupancy and lower operating expenses. Fortunately, there is a program that can help do both. The U.S. EPA’s EnergyStar Labeling program for hospitality buildings offers solutions to property owners to find hidden operational cost savings and unlock energy efficiency throughout the property. In addition, since EnergyStar is the most recognized eco-label by environmentally conscious consumers, it provides positive connection to the traveling public.

Energy Efficiency = Cost $avings

• U.S. hotels spend close to $4 billion on energy every year.
  • A 10 % reduction in energy costs is equivalent to increasing ADR by $0.83 for limited service hotels and by $2.45 for full-service hotels.
  • Hotels and motels spend an average of $2,196 per available room each year on energy, an amount that represents about 6 percent of all hotel operating costs

Hotels can dramatically improve energy performance and thus operating costs with simple steps that will leave additional capital to invest in further property improvements. In addition to delivering financial savings, cost reductions through energy efficiency translate into greater profitability for hotel owners.

Increased Recognition = Additional Revenue

• Leading online travel companies, Travelocity (Green Directory) and Orbitz (Eco-Toursim Travel Guide), enhanced their online hotel listing to allow travelers to easily identify properties that have earned the EnergyStar Label.

Leading hotel corporations are taking advantage of the cost savings found within the program. Hilton Hotels earned the EPA’s EnergyStar Award for Excellence in Energy Management and ties their hotel general managers’ annual bonuses to energy performance. By meeting Hilton’s goal of reducing energy consumption by 5% for every owned hotel, a manager’s annual bonus was increased. This resulted in almost every property meeting the goal.  Marriott has over 275 hotels with its EnergyStar label, more than any other hotel company. The US EPA also presented Marriott with its EnergyStar Sustained Excellence Award and has named the company “Partner of the Year” since 2004.

Currently there are 415 labeled green hotels: which represents 4% of the total labeled buildings in the US. (see figure 1).

Less than 1% of all of the 47,000 US hotels are Energy Star Labeled, which means yours can stand-alone in its local market.  EcoGreenHotel can assist your property achieve the EnergyStar Label through its onsite Energy Efficiency Analysis and EnergyStar benchmarking and labeling services. http://www.ecogreenhotel.com/energystarbenchmarking.php

In a recent survey of fifty lodging facilities along the Gulf coast from Texas to the Florida Keys – some of them were likely certified green hotels – the Knowland Group found that 42% of hoteliers reported that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off Louisiana has already resulted in cancelled bookings.  Even in areas far removed from the spill’s current location, wary travelers are re-thinking their plans to stay in coastal properties.

While there is great uncertainty surrounding where the slick might ultimately end up, there is little doubt it will have a devastating environmental impact along the northern Gulf Coast. And some experts predict the oil could enter a loop current which would carry it like a conveyor belt to the pristine beaches and coral reefs off the Florida Keys, along the sugar white sands of South Beach and up the east coast of Florida and beyond.

According to the Knowland Group, many properties they surveyed are being proactive and implementing plans to deal with the spill’s potential fallout.  One idea being batted around the Florida Keys is to request additional funds from BP (in excess of the $25 million the company has already given to Florida and other states to promote tourism in the wake of the spill) to provide free travel insurance to groups and individuals booking within the next several months.

We think this idea has a lot of merit. With summer beach travel about to hit full stride in a matter of weeks, the uncertainty surrounding where the slick might end up warrants a bold approach.  Providing free travel insurance would allow consumers to book a beach vacation or conference with confidence, and would allow coastal hoteliers to stay afloat in the event the spill adversely affects their area.

We sincerely hope BP will pony up additional money to fund travel insurance for coastal lodging – green hotels and otherwise.  It’s the least they can do under the circumstances.

What are your ideas for how green hotels can respond to the oil spill threat?  Send them to us at info@EcoGreenHotel.com and we may publish them in our newsletter!