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Tag Archives: Eco friendly hotels
Basic Money-Saving Energy Usage & Waste Reduction Tips
Many hotels have taken the plunge into green standards and certification as thousands of buildings and manufacturing plants have earned the EPA’s Energy Star through the recent “green” trend years. Getting started is simple as there are a variety of everyday appliances and electronics that almost all hotel offices operate daily, such as: photocopiers, computers, printers, fax machines, and refrigerators. Whether you are just starting out or are an energy efficient hotel but overlooked these basic steps, there are money-saving and environmentally responsible solutions to reducing energy use with all of these equipments.
- PHOTOCOPIERS that are switched off at night and on weekends—either manually, or with an automatic time switch can yield a savings of 40% to 60% per year [that] can be achieved for each photocopier in the workplace according to research by the Government of South Australia.
- DESKTOP COMPUTERS can yield an even higher return profit since a modern desktop computer costs about $110 a year to run 24-hours a day, but just by turning them off each night a single computer can reduce its energy use by 70%. If your green hotel is purchasing a new desktop, be sure to look for the energy efficiency logo by Energy Star. Hotels can also refer to the EPEAT ratings to compare manufacturers and models of environmentally friendly computers.
- PRINTING SMARTER is also a great money and energy saver when documents are printed double- sided and by having toner cartridges refilled or remanufactured. Paper costs can be almost halved simply by printing double-sided, and you can save $100 on toner and $30 on ink by refilling your printer and toner cartridges.
The environmental reflections are also positive as Office Depot states that “each remanufactured toner cartridge keeps approximately 2.5 pounds of metal and plastic out of landfills…and conserves about a half gallon of oil.”
- PURCHASING A FAX MACHINE can also yield long-term savings when an inkjet machine is chosen over a thermal machine. Although a thermal fax machine costs less to buy, the thermal paper costs a lot more than the plain paper used by inkjet fax machines, isn’t recyclable, and needs to be photocopied for long term storage.
- ENERGY STAR CERTIFIED REFRIGERATOR can save at least 30% when upgraded from an older, noncertified refrigerator.
Energy efficient hotels is the future. Therefore, become and energy efficient hotel not only to compete but for your bottom line savings.
Foundation for Successful 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.
Five Robust Steps to Prepare and Ensure Energy Success
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.
Daylighting: Energy Saving and Productivity Boosting Benefits
Daylighting is defined as the practice of placing windows or other openings and reflective surfaces so that during the day natural light provides energy efficient lighting inside. So why would a hotel owner want to take on the challenge of using daylight to light their hotel?
The short answer: to create beautiful spaces, save energy and operating costs and reduce our impact on our planet In one word: money
Good daylighting design could save from 15 to 75 percent of the energy used forelectric lighting in a hotel building. Of course, energy savings depend on various factors such as occupancy patterns, control strategy, design, energy usage, and the amount of daylight.
It’s natural. Using natural light from the sun costs nothing to the environment and pays big dividends to hotel guests and employees. As a great energy efficient lighting solution for hotels, daylighting consumes less energy and thereby reduces fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions associated with global warming and climate change.
It works. Research has discovered that people thrive in naturally lit environments. Studies have shown that daylighting has a direct impact on well-being, productivity and overall sense of satisfaction – shoppers linger longer and buy more; students do better on tests; workers are more productive and absent less often.
It’s smart.Aside from making a green hotel statement about the owners, operators and staff (socially and sustainably responsible) daylighting can also:
- Reduce lighting and operating costs
- Reduce cooling costs (in almost all climates all year round)
- Be accomplished without significantincrease in construction costs in new construction
Because seeing is believing,project centers known as “living labs” have been created to examine the actual effectiveness of daylighting. These include the State of Wisconsin Administration Building in Milwaukee and the Hoffman Corp headquarters in Appleton, Wisconsin. “We use the term ‘cool-daylighting’ to emphasize that daylighting isn’t just big windows,” says Abby Vogen, project director at Energy Center of Wisconsin. “It is the orientation of the building, glazing, energy-efficient light fixtures, mechanical systems, and how all these components are impacted by natural lighting.”
Results of the experiment conducted by the Energy Center of Wisconsin at the Energy Resource Station in Iowa to see if cooling energy could be saved using daylighting design were considerable. Comparison of two rooms (one standard and the other high-performance) yielded 32 percent savings on annual lighting costs and total overall annual energy savings of 22 percent.
Even retail stores like Wal-mart are beginning to see the environmental and monetary benefits of daylighting for both employees and consumers. In an experiment, stores that included skylights over certain departments found that overall sales per square foot were higher in those departments lit by natural (energy-efficient) light.
For existing green hotels, a high-performance daylighting system may initially require a significant investment. However, if the project team uses an integrated, strategic design approach, the greenhotels overall long-term savings will make up for any initial dollars spent on daylighting.
Rising energy costs, environmental impact, and green design has compelled green hotels across the country to find economical alternatives and adapt new ideas, or in this case, reconsider old ideas made new again.
A Small Business Case: The Merits of Energy Efficient T8 Tube Lights
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
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
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
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
Finally! Eco-Friendly Details That Make a Difference
Brand your hotel’s image with the right sustainable materials
It is no secret that guests today are well informed about recycling, eco-friendly materials, conservation, and disposal. So what impression do hotels make when they market themselves as “green” but guests see the services directory printed on recycled paper (we hope) held in a non-environmentally friendly binder or cover?
These are products that your guests come in contact with frequently or use daily. They include accessory items such as guest service directory covers, binder covers, menu covers, and presentation folders to ice buckets, trays, desk blotters and tabletop accessories. Hotels should recognize these as one of the most visible ways to make a statement about their property, services, goals and vision and demonstrate the hotel’s green initiatives to guests!
What better way to show your commitment to sustainability than through the product itself! Not only will guests be impressed, but they will also appreciate to know the environmental benefits of that specific product: reduce waste and contamination of landfills and our water – that is a major one!
MOVING BEYOND DESIGN CONVENTIONS
As a pioneer of innovative menu cover manufacturing, Impact Enterprises, have been researching and creating solutions for quality eco-friendly materials for several years by simply listening to their clients needs (but you don’t have to take our word for it, just take a look at the impressive client list at the end).
Their products are manufactured from materials that are:
- Natural and environmentally friendly
- Durable, reusable and safe
- Attractive and upscale
Click here to see creativity at work and samples of client products
GREEN SOLUTIONS
Understanding the impact of your purchasing decisions is critical to supporting environmental responsibility.
Top 10 Green Details You Should Know About
- ‘Poly’ materials – polyethylene and polypropylene are available in recycled format. Both are durable, however, polyethylene is the more durable of the two ‘polys’. For lasting durability make certain the spine is a heat-scored spine. Recycled polyethylene Guest Services Directory covers and Menu covers are popular and economically priced.
- Farmed Woods – products manufactured from solid woods harvested from Verified Sustainable Forests are the most environmentally responsible products. Solid wood accessory items are durable, recyclable, reusable, decompose quickly, and contain no contaminants.
- Bonded Leather – this recycled smooth finish leather is durable and contains natural materials. Verify that the polymers used for bonding are non-toxic.
- Chipboard Presentation Products – this is a recycled product that decomposes quickly when disposed of. It is usually used as a base (support) for other materials. However, chipboard by itself creates a unique and durable product. Why cover this eco-friendly material with a vinyl or laminate. Use eco-friendly soy inks for decoration.
- Wire Binding – use wire binding instead of plastic coils because it can be recycled.
- Recycled Boards and Paper – use 100% recycled binder boards and paper to make covers and do not forget about the many sheets inside. 100% post-consumer papers choices are available.
- Eco-Friendly Inks and Coatings – lots of eco-friendly ink choices. Good options are soy ink, and UV screening inks that contain no solvents. Use only aqueous coated products as these contain no solvents also. Solvents contaminate landfills.
- Verified Sustainable Forests – make sure wood products are certified by a reputable forest certification program such as Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) that was also adopted by the American Forest & Paper Association. This ensures that we will have forests and wildlife for the future generations.
- Metal – copper, brass, and aluminum are available in recycled format. These metals create durable products, can be recycled several times, and are available in a wide selection of natural (organic) patina finishes. Impact is the first manufacturer of copper, brass and brushed aluminum binder covers, menu covers, and other presentation products. All of their metals are recycled, and have an international following.
- Ring Mechanisms – request that the ring mechanisms used in binder covers and guest services directory covers be installed with screws, nuts and bolts, or custom clips. These will then be easily removed for reuse or recycling. If riveted, these mechanisms will just end up in landfills.
STRONG CUSTOMER BASE
Impact Enterprises meets the criteria and offers a very substantial array of quality upscale green products. Their solid wood products have not only been tested by Impact, but also by their customers including Live Nation Entertainment (House of Blues clubs), Primland (an international eco-resort), Trump International, Paramount Pictures, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, and the Borgata Resort Casino to name a few.
Best news of all, these products are affordable! Even though the green products are in the White House and the Smithsonian and are being used by the U.S. Military, Harvard Law School and all major hotels, restaurants, resorts, casinos, spas, and golf clubs – they are economical for the hotel industry.
To find out more information about custom binders, menu covers, presentation folders, award covers, sales kits, tabletop and desktop accessories, custom signage and boxes, portfolios, corporate gifts and other products visit www.impactenterprises.com.