Green Lodging, Get Certified Before Your Competition

Posted on November 17, 2010 by admin

The 411 on Top Green Hotel Certifications

The race continues as hotels strive to one-up their competition. In January we had published an investigative article on green hotel certifications exploring various anglesof “why certify” and details of major certification programs. As the number of green certification programs continues to grow, we want to revisit some of the prominent certifications that continue to lead the hospitality lodging industry on the green trend.

Compared to the beginning of the year, hoteliers have more options than ever when it comes to selecting which green lodging certification program to participate and obtain. From established worldwide green certification programs to the recent state versions, analyzing the options could be overwhelming. The key factor in selecting the appropriate program is to ensure it provides absolute value through quantifiable results (ie. energy usage, cost reduction, guest satisfaction, etc). We recommend our clients to start with a hotel energy benchmarking and tracking system.

Are you in? Standing on the sidelines can cost you money in the long run. While obtaining a green certification is not mandatory, it could mean you are missing out on some great benefits, which include:

green hotel news

Reduced operating costs
Improve the bottom line
Demonstrate leadership in sustainability
Enhanced reputation, brand and market value
Federal and state tax benefits
Reduction of green house emissions
Attract eco-conscious travelers
Healthier environment for employees and guests
Attraction and retraction of talent

There are a variety of green certifications that can denote that a hotel is implementing specific green practices, however each program has a different focus, different priorities and different standards — no two are alike. In a recent article published by Hotel & Leisure Advisors, four aspects have been identified to distinguish the focus of green certification programs: “These broad categories consist of certifications for overall building structures, the building fixtures themselves, building operations, and overall management practices.”

Keeping these categories in mind, the following are top green lodging certification programs (in alphabetical order):

Audubon Green Leaf™ Eco-Rating Program: (www.greenleaf.auduboninternational.org) This program works with hotels to ensure that they are using green practices in their upkeep and everyday running of the establishment.A tiered certification program where environmental measures are evaluated according to: water quality, water conservation, waste minimization, resource conservation, and energy efficiency.

Rating: One to Five ‘Green Leafs’

Recognized/Chosen by: The State of New York as statewide hospitality ‘greening’ goal.

EcoRooms® & EcoSuites™: (www.ecorooms.com) Certified properties must meet eight strict eco-criteria for membership and certification. The criteria includes: use of Green Seal certified cleaning and paper products, towel and linen reuse program, recyclable waste program, energy efficient lighting, high efficiency plumbing, and 100% smoke-free properties.

Rating: Must meet all eight program requirements

Recognized/Chosen by: American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA).

EPA’s Energy Star label: (www.energystar.gov) The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program enables buildings to qualify through meeting strict energy performance standards. Energy Star labeled properties use less energy, have reduced operating expenses, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. To be certified, the property mustattain a minimum score of 75, the top 25%, based on EPA’s National Energy Performance Rating System. As of November 2010, there are 426Energy Star labeled U.S. hotels.

Rating: Must obtain a score of 75 or higher

Green Globe Certification: (www.greenglobecertification.com) This is a certification label for sustainability in both management and operations. Certification criteria cover several areas, including sustainable management and social economic, cultural heritage, and environmental aspects of sustainability.The program’s criteria are also updated annually to ensure international compliance.

Rating: Must achieve threshold of at least 35% of the total 1,000 points

Green Key®: (www.green-key.org) The is an international eco-label for leisure organizations including hotels, conference centers, youth hostels, and campsites. As a graduated rating system, hotels are given guidance on how to “unlock” opportunities to the next level. The program assesses the five main operational areas of a property and covers nine sustainable practices.

Rating: One to Five Green Keys

Recognized/Chosen by: Carlson Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Motel 6, and Accor North America. The state of Indiana as statewide green initiatives program.

Green Seal certification: (www.greenseal.org) This tiered certification is presented to those lodging properties that achieve various levels of compliance with GS-33, Green Seal Environmental Leadership Standard for Lodging Properties. Properties must demonstrate science-based evaluation of sustainable practices in following areas: waste minimization, energy efficiency, conservation and management, management of fresh water resources, wastewater management, hazardous substances, and environmentally conscious purchasing.

Rating: Bronze, Silver or Gold Levels

Recognized/Chosen by: The city of Los Angeles through its Green Business Initiative, as well as Chicago through its Green Hotels Initiative.

USGBC LEED® certification: (www.usbgc.org/leed) The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. Promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

Rating: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum Levels

About Author
Susan Patel, VP of Technologies & Communications. Leads business development and operations and is the Site Director and Managing Editor of EcoGreenHotel online publications.

Foundation for Successful Energy Management

Posted on October 26, 2010 by admin

energy management Nationwide we’re seeing growth in the green economy, but hurdles still remain as hotels, companies, and other businesses look for resources and funds.

One growth area that we have noticed is the emergence of opportunities around energy. With Obama focusing on green and clean technology, we’ll be seeing more funds (tax rebates, federal energy incentives, etc) allocated to help businesses move towards our national goals. Case in point, over the next three years, $900 million in federal and state grant money will be going to Chicago for energy efficiency work according to Chicago’s Department of Environment.

Good news for the future, but what about now? Not only are resources needed, but money is needed. With banks virtually putting a freeze on grants to small businesses including hotels, more and more hotels are struggling to either meet budget goals, or even sustain their financing, forget about trying to fund an energy project.

So what can green hotels do now with limited funds? Aside from the simple measures such as replacing incandescent lighting to CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) or LEDs, we, at EcoGreenHotel,also recommend green hotels to prepare for an energy efficiency project.

Energy Usage & Benchmarking
It is astonishing to see how many properties are still not tracking their energy/utility usage. As a company focused on helping hotels stay in business, we don’t start any hotel energy projects without benchmarking it in ENERY STAR Portfolio Manager. Tracking and managing your energy performance is critical.

It is very simple, if you do not know where you are starting, the baseline, how do you know how far you have gone? How do you quantify energy savings or monitor your energy usage? How do you know if your most recent energy conservation measure reduced your usage? You have to evaluate progress, measure results and benchmark against your competition to know exactly where you stand. Otherwise it is going to cost you.

The key action hotels seem to overlook is they can start benchmarking and tracking energy usage anytime – even today. Hotels don’t have to wait until they have secured funds for an energy efficiency project or wait for senior management approval or new budgets. On the contrary, understanding current and past energy use is how many organizations identify opportunities to improve hotel energy performance and gain financial benefits. It can pay for itself by highlighting which hotels use the most energy, pointing to areas of greatest opportunity, and even identifying errors in utility bills, such as overcharges, that might have otherwise gone unnoticed and paid.

Assessing your energy performance helps you to:

Categorize current energy use by fuel type, operating division, facility, product line, etc.
Identify high performing hotels for recognition and replicable practices.
Prioritize poor performing hotels for immediate improvement.
Understand the contribution of energy expenditures to operating costs.
Develop a historical perspective and context for future actions and decisions.
Establish reference points for measuring and rewarding good performance.

In the end, starting sooner than later is going to benefit in the long run. Not only will the tracking system for maintaining the ENERGY STAR portfolio be established, but it will also become a standard process that your staff will be familiar with when you do start implementing your hotel’s energy efficiency projects, which will then allow free time for other things.

The Drive for Energy Efficiency

Posted on October 21, 2010 by admin

A Road Map for Your Green Hotel

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. –According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, American hotels spend an average of almost $2,200 per available room on energy each year, representing about six percent of all operating costs.

A reduction in energy consumption of just ten percent is the same as raising the average daily room rate at your green hotelby $.062 to $1.35. That savings can really add up – look at what it did for Marriott International. Just by changing lighting and laundry systems at its green hotels, the company was able to save almost $6 million in 2006 alone, not to mention reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 70,000 tons!

What’s that you say? Your green hotel is nothing like Marriott International so this information doesn’t apply to you? Okay…maybe the Willard Intercontinental in Washington, D.C. is more your type. Just by changing to CFL lighting in guest rooms and commons areas, the Willard saved a whopping $100,000 in one year! The upgrade paid for itself in just six months, and guest complaints about lighting quality actually decreased after the property made the switch. Who said that guest satisfaction goes down when hotels go green?

There’s never been a better time to increase energy efficiency at your green hotel. The savings are real, the benefits are quantifiable, and the expert help is right here. EcoGreenHotel has guided green hotels from coast to coast through the process of benchmarking, certification, upgrading, and funding. They’re pros at helping properties just like yours locate and obtain the federal, state and local tax incentives, rebates, grants and loans to get the job done, quickly and cost-effectively.

We’ve got the roadmap to energy efficiency and major cost savings for your green hotel, and we’re ready to roll!

Five Tips Before Your Green Hotel Selects a LED Lighting System

Posted on October 19, 2010 by admin

The advancement in lighting technologies now means that there are a spectrum of energy-efficient light bulbs including LED bulbs available to purchase. LED retrofits can offer your green hotel two key benefits: (1) some fixtures can deliver up to 85 percent energy savings and (2) the life span of LEDs average about 50,000 to 100,000 hours, reports Retrofit Magazine. Before making a decision on a retrofit however, green hotels first have to evaluate their current lighting layout and future requirements.

With seven percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. being for lighting (stated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)), even the Obama Administration has been setting energy conservation standards for certain types of fluorescent lamps and incadescent reflector lamps, and is investing $346 million in energy-efficient building technologies.

LED, lighting emitting diode, lights are the most efficient type of lighting and can last up to 100,000 hours. LED bulbs are new and more expensive technology that is not as commonly used as either incadescent or CFL bulbs, but they are steadily decreasing in price. Due to the initial cost, hotels first need to consider several factors including the condition and voltage of the hotel’s existing wiring and circuitry before making the investment. Certain LED fixtures may not be compatible with the voltage rating and control preferences such as for dimming and/or motion control.Therefore, having a professional energy auditor can save you time and money from potential expensive mistakes.

Other aspects include downtime for the installation, how much energy savings the hotel expects from the retrofit, manufacturers’ warranties, who will install the new lighting systems and whether it’s necessary to take before and after light-level and energy readings.

Operators implementing hotel energy-efficiency measuresshould also call local utilitiy companies to check on rebates for energy-efficient lighting and/or tax deductions or credits. This can significantly save on the initial investment cost.

The followiing are five tips for selecting LED systems suggested by Retrofit Magazine:

Understand the fixture manufacturer’s claims including the performance of the products, up-front equipment costs, ongoing energy and maintenance costs and after-sale support
Evaluate the quality of the LEDs by comparing the light output and efficiency to the green hotel’s benchmarking tests [Benchmarking is critical to evaluating any energy conservation measure]
Evaluate the performance of the LED lighting fixture with your Energy Star benchmarking data and the manufacturer’s metric reports
Verify the claims by the manufacturer for light and energy performance
Review the installation requirements for LED lighting fixtures and ensure that your new fixtures are compliant to the National Electric Code requirements for installation of light fixtures

Five Robust Steps to Prepare and Ensure Energy Success

Posted on October 18, 2010 by admin

Whatever the driving force, energy efficiency will be an integral part of staying successful in this competitive business environment. The phrase, “going ‘green’ to make ‘green’” holds true. Global Business Network (GBN) in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and with the help of twenty major U.S. company senior executives have identified a set of strategies that will help businesses act now to prepare for future energy-related risks.

Plan for the Future
Scenario planning is a strategic planning tool that has been in existence for a while. Industry leaders have implemented this strategy to identify and develop plans for coping with some of the major risks the future might hold. The aim is to highlight the risks and uncertainties of the future that one should be starting to deal with now.

For example, Shell used scenario development as a basis for formulating strategies to cope with the possibility of OPEC reducing oil supply and raising prices, an eventuality no other oil company foresaw. When this happened in 1973, within two years Shell went from the world’s eight largest oil company to the second largest.

The executive group participating in GBN’s workshops created the following four plausible “roads” ahead, each posing a specific challenge:

The Same Road – where the world continues much in the same direction it appears to be going now in regard to energy and environmental concerns around climate change
The Long Road – where the world undergoes a significant shift in the economic, geopolitical and energy centers of gravity
The Broken Road – where the world continues much in the same way as today, but is then hit by a severe event that overturns established systems and rules
The Fast Road – where reasoned decisions and investments about energy efficiency and climate risk are made early enough to make a difference

Take Action Now
All twenty-business leaders were asked to explore the impacts of these four “road” scenarios in regards to energy strategy and management in their companies. “Our group of business executives looked to the scenarios and considered the strategies that would enable a company to successfully travel along whichever future actually emerges,” write Erik Smith and Peter Schwartz, authors of GBN’s ‘Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead’ article.

The group concluded all businesses should take the following five robust steps to prepare and ensure energy success regardless of the future:

Master the fundamentals of energy efficiency.
Build the culture through leadership and with the help of experts. Set goals, measure and track energy performance, establish accountability and other systems across the business.
Take both a longer and broader view of investments and strategic decisions about energy.
Make major strategic decisions (e.g. technology choices, facility location for new builds) with energy cost, use and supply in mind. See the entire Energy Value Chain, including upstream inputs from suppliers (into internal operations) and downstream outputs to customers (from internal operations).
Search out business transformation opportunities in the way the business manages, procures and uses energy.
Frame energy as a lever for positive growth and change within the business, not simply a cost. Be innovative and aggressive in pursuing and publicizing new product and service offerings based on new energy technologies and supplies.
Prepare contingent strategies for emergent future scenarios.
Rehearse specific aspects of the “road ahead”, including substantial and sustained swings in energy price and supply, severe weather events and penalties or incentives around energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Actively manage exposure to risks and ready plans. Monitor for signs of which “road ahead” is emerging.
Take personal action.
Both corporate leaders and employees can take numerous green actions today whether at work our outside.

Content and information retrieved from the following source (credited to):
Smith, Erik & Schwartz, Peter. (2007). Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead (Global Business Network, a member of the Monitor Group). Retrieved from http://gbn.com/articles/pdfs/GBN_EPA_Energy%20Strategy%20Scenarios.pdf.

A Small Business Case: The Merits of Energy Efficient T8 Tube Lights

Posted on September 29, 2010 by admin

Today’s new generation of optimized, “high-efficiency” T8 lamps and electronic ballasts are available in a range of energy-saving models. Energy efficient lamp and ballast systems contribute significantly to reducing energy consumption and costs by nearly 30%. Paybacks of one to three years are common.

Upgrading your hotel’s fluorescent lamps and ballasts will:

Reduce energy consumption
Lower the hotel’s energy cost
Simplify maintenance and stocking requirements (low life-cycle costs), and
Provide illumination that closely resembles natural light

According to one property installation conducted by Cushman & Wakefield, “these products can reduce total system wattage by over 45% relative to the use of older T12 fluorescent systems driven by magnetic ballasts.”

Description
T8 lamps: Slim profile enables them to function more efficiently including longer lamp life, better lumen maintenance and higher color rendering capability.

Electronic ballasts: Designed to provide right voltage and current to lamp (programmable model). Use high frequency and solid-state circuitry instead of heavy copper. Save one watt of energy and product more light for each watt, run cooler and last longer.

Business Case
Installing new high performance T8 lamps along with electronic ballasts in guest bathrooms and the back-of-house of a 300-room hotel.

In guest bathrooms, two 40-watt fluorescent lights can be replaced with 25-watt T8 lamps and electronic ballast. The 290 back-of-house lamps, which run on average of 18 hours, can be converted to 25-watt T8 lamps.

Energy and Cost Analysis

[Assumptions: occupancy gathered from P&L, hours of lamps based on national average, and one electronic ballast for two T8 lamps installed]

Cost per kWh as stated on electric bills is approximately $0.144.
Cost per T8 lamp and half of electronic ballast including installation is $14.25.

GUEST BATHROOM

Equation:
Guest Rooms X Occupancy Rate X Number of Lamps X Reduction in Wattage X Number of Hours Used X Total Days X Kwhr Multiplier = Total kWh Saved

300 X 67% X 2 X 15w X 6 X 365 X .001 = 13,205.7 kWh

BACK-OF-HOUSE

Equation:
Number of Lamps X Reduction in Wattage X Number of Hours Used X Total Days X Kwhr Multiplier = Total kWh Saved

290 X 15w X 18 X 365 X .001 = 28,579.5 kWh

Energy & Cost Savings	Annual Electric Savings	No. Lamps
Guest Bathroom	13,206 kWh	600
Back-of-House	28,580 kWh	290
Total Annual kWh Savings	41,786 kWh
Annual kWh Electric Savings($0.144)	$6,017

Investment Payback (ROI)	Investment ($14.25 ea)	No. Lamps
Guest Bathroom	$8,550	600
Back-of-House	$4,133	290
Total Investment	$12,683
Return on Investment	2.1 years

The numbers speak for themselves. You can easily calculate your green hotel’s custom lighting project’s ROI and savings by simply using the above equations.For more information on T8 lamps or to reach EcoGreenHotel’s recommended lighting specialists click here to contact us.

Overall, lighting represents almost a quarter (sometimes even more) of all electricity consumed in a typical hotel, not including its effect on cooling loads. According to ENERGY STAR, lighting retrofits can reduce lighting electricity use by 50 percent or more, depending on the starting point, and cut cooling energy requirements by 10 to 20 percent as well.

Even if your hotel’s budget is small you can still reduce your costs by upgrading to compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) – if you haven’t already. A Michigan Marriott replaced its public-space incandescent lights with CFLs and saved more than $40,000 in energy and maintenance costs. The historic Willard InterContinental in Washington, D.C., installed CFLs in common areas and guest rooms. The investment resulted in few complaints about lighting quality and a six-month payback based on energy savings.

In conclusion, whether you call them energy efficient, energy saving, high performance or high efficiency lighting, upgrading your hotel lights to the new generation technology makes cents!

GREEN TEAMS Final Part 6: Align Green Teams with Corporate Sustainability Goals

Posted on September 29, 2010 by admin

Integrating sustainability through employee and guest involvement is essential for the success of your hotel’s ongoing green operations and programs. We have covered numerous topics in this GREEN TEAM series including focusing on internal operations, engaging employees to capture ideas, best practices to engaging employees to be part of the solution, using art to raise awareness and creating a toolkit to support and guide green teams. Our final focus ties everything back to corporate sustainability goals to take your green teams to the next level.

Align Green Teams with Corporate Sustainability Goals

To take your green team to the next level your hotel should link them to the corporate sustainability goals. One way to incorporate this is to have a staff person from the corporate sustainability program lead the green team, which will provide synergies between the corporate objectives and the green team programs.

Other strategies to help link green teams to corporate sustainability goals include:

Create a paid in-house position to oversee the green team or hire a consultant to help
Integrate sustainability metrics into employee’s performance goals
Link bonuses/compensation to sustainability goals
Create a senior-level, cross-functional team that brings department heads from key departments together to link sustainability intitiatives to green team initiatives
Train employees to understand which sustainability issues are important to the business by setting the context and help employees understand that their small actions can make a difference

Intel is a good example of company-wide support for environmental performance. They have tied a component of every employee’s bonus to the company’s environmental performance. One year, a portion of the bonus, was tied to reducing their carbon footprint.

Intel found that their green teams were active enough that it made sense to have a corporate convening structure to help align their activities with corporate initiatives. “We aren’t trying to dictate everything that they do, because so much of what is important to them is what is important at their locale,” explains Carrie Freeman, Corporate Sustainability Strategist at Intel.

“We didn’t want to hamper the green team efforts, but we also wanted some alignment with our corporate initiatives,” continues Freeman.

The hotel industry should refer to the pioneers of “greening” even if the companies are not in the hospitality industry.They have spend countless hours and funds into research and development of sustainability programs and structures. It is a good place to start and play ideas off of.

The green teams at Intel still have the latitude to focus issues of interest, such as planting on-site organic gardens or reduce shopping bag use, but for 2009 they were also asked to help incorporate awareness, communication and education on reducing office energy use, providing some alignment with their carbon reduction goal.

Sustainable hotel business expert Scott Parisi stresses that getting your employees to green your hotel operations is where the greatest value lies. Along with Andrew Winston author of Green Recovery, Scott also challenges hoteliers to, “Ask your employees to focus team efforts on innovating to reduce energy use or to design new products that satisfy green-minded customers. Green teams, if used right, can morph from mainly engagement tools to something even more fundamentally valuable to the business.”

Green teams can be a great ally and resource for creating excitement around new green ways of doing business.

Conclusion

Engaging employees is not an easy territory with a simple formula for success, but rather an art than science. Harnessing the power of green teams and aligning their efforts with corporate goals is a learning edge for most hotels.

While the best practices outlined through the series provides ideas to get started, challenges do exist. Some key challenges a hotel might face as they dive into green teams include:

Metrics: It is critical as a business to track what success looks like. However, it is not always easy to gather data on progress. Software tools are becoming available to help green teams track results.
Engaging business units/departments: This is a key challenge especially when they are not interested in sustainability issues. It is important to articulate the business case in terms that are meaningful to them.
Strategic versus grassroots: Corporate needs to decide if it makes sense to link employee activities to the corporate strategy or give them the flexibility to address issue at individual hotel locations.
Volunteer or paid time: Do employees implement ideas on their own time or is it part of the job? In these strained economic times, what is the best way to reassure employees that they will not be penalized for participating in a green team?
Corporate structure without losing the grassroots passion: Another challenge is how to manage the tensions between providing enough structure to link green team activities to a corporate strategy, without losing their grassroots energy, creativity and passion.

Green Teams

Posted on September 24, 2010 by admin

A hybrid structure is evolving where a “corporate green team” is created to bring staff from all departments together to help implement and support strategic sustainability initiatives. They also act as a cross-functional umbrella group to screen ideas, identify resources, provide support and help link green team activities with corporate sustainability objectives.

Click here to access a basic outline of getting started and effective ideas:
Best Green Practices & Green Teams

Green Team Series

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Making the Business Case

Part 3: Getting Started, Emerging Trends and Best Practices

Part 4: Get Senior Management Involved and Engage Employees

Part 5: Engage Customers to be Part of the Solution

Part 6: Align Green Teams with Corporate Sustainability Goals

Taking the Next Step in Creating Electric Vehicle Infrastructure

Posted on September 22, 2010 by admin

Last month EcoGreenHotel highlighted the hospitality industry’s role in helping to build the infrastructure to make electric vehicles a common site on streets and highways throughout the country. This month we are going to explore the concept at greater length and offer a vision for the very near future.

If you have read the headlines over the last three months, it is clear that momentum is building for 2011 to be the year for full-scale launch of electric vehicles in the US. Here are just a few highlights:

Enterprise Rent-A-Car will offer 500 Leaf all-electric cars to customers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Knoxville/Nashville, and Seattle beginning January 2011.
President Obama pledges to bring 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to U.S. Highways by 2015.
CNN reports Coulomb Technologies said it will build 4,600 electric vehicle-charging stations in nine regions of the U.S., funded by $37 million in grants.
Chicago gets geared up for electric vehicles.
Texas State Fair will feature an Electric Vehicle Showcase, sponsored by General Motors, US Green Building Council, North Central Texas Council Of Governments and North Texas Clean Air Coalition.

How can the hospitality industry participate and capitalize on the momentum? It’s easier than you think. Charging stations take up very little space in the parking lot with the typical two parking space arrangement. More importantly in these tough economic times, they are eligible to receive Federal Tax Credits for up to 50% of the installation cost until the end of 2010. In addition there are numerous state and local rebates and incentives to reduce the initial costs. www.pluginamerica.org/incentives.shtm

Hotels make for ideal charging spots in a regional charging infrastructure since typical ‘fill-ups’ can take up to 8 hours using 220-volt and 20 hours using 110-volt. Let’s be honest, travelers aren’t going to spend 4 to 5 hours at a gas station even with the worst case of “range anxiety”. Hotel lobbies, restaurants and pools provide a welcome retreat for long distance travelers and local EV owners looking for a place to recharge their batteries.

As an example of forward thinking in North Texas, the Sheraton in downtown Dallas converted three garage parking spaces into electric vehicle plug-in charging stations using standard electric conduit at the beginning of this summer. “We’ve had 15-20 guests use the charging station for their electric vehicles since we’ve installed them. It’s more than we initially expected. Plus, when guests are not using the stations, we lease the spaces to a local mobile advertising company to charge their EV mobile billboards overnight. The small investment has already paid for itself” Steve White, Sheraton Dallas Hotel Manager.

Looking further into the future, electric vehicle manufacturers are rolling out larger vehicles that can be used as shuttle vans. Electric Mobile Cars’ 7-Passenger mini-van has a maximum 220-mile range at 75mph. It’s ‘Fill-up’ is 75% less expensive than its combustion engine cousins. With inexpensive fuel costs and large space, it is an ideal no-emissions green airport shuttle for a hotel to reduce operational costs. www.emc4u.com

Heading into the next decade of the new millennium, pioneering green hotels will be at the forefront to provide a source of power to create a more sustainable future than their competitors. If you have any questions on charging stations, electric vehicles or green hotels, please contact info@ecogreenhotel.com

Improving Your Energy Performance at Your Green Hotel

Posted on September 1, 2010 by admin

One Easy Way to Get Started

If you stop to think about it, your hotel is sort of like a machine. It’s got a ton of moving parts – the building and all of its infrastructure, the staff and administrative personnel, the grounds – all of those components have to be in good working order or the whole operation will suffer.

But there’s another moving part to your machine that you might not have considered right off the bat, and that’s the energy that powers your entire hotel engine. If your building, its infrastructure, your personnel and the grounds surrounding the building are not conserving energy like they could be, the machine that is your green hotel will eventually sputter and stop running. It won’t be able to sustain itself, and it won’t be able to compete with all the other green hotel machines that are running at peak efficiency.

Even if you have implemented a green initiative or two at your property, there is still room for improvement, because green lodging is not a destination – it’s a journey. And a journey of a thousand miles begins with… say it with me now… a single step!

Maybe your green team would like to improve your property’s energy efficiency but you’re confused about the next logical step. Or perhaps your hotel has yet to launch a green initiative and you don’t even know where to begin. One easy way to overcome either of those scenarios and kick start the process in a single step is to conduct an energy efficiency analysis.

An energy efficiency analysis is an in-depth study of your property’s energy usage. It shows you – in black and white – how each of your hotel’s moving parts can become more efficient, and how you can save energy and money without disrupting the guest experience (and in many cases, how you can actually enhance the guest experience).

One of the most important things to come out of an energy efficiency analysis is benchmarking, which gives you a starting point from which to measure your green hotel’s progress toward greater efficiency and savings. The most trusted benchmarking tool for hotels is the one developed by Energy Star, which is a joint program of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Almost 4,000 hotels have used the Energy Star benchmarking tool as part of their energy efficiency analysis. To learn more, visit www.EcoGreenHotel.com and click on “Energy Star” under Our Services section.