Kona Village in Hawaii is over the top when it comes to recycled materials. The roofs of its restaurant, fitness center and bungalows are made from the dried fronds of coconut palms found on the property. Ceiling fans eliminate the need for air conditioning, and there are no radios, televisions or telephones in the rooms.
•Proximity Hotel, being built in Greensboro, N.C., has raised the bar on “green” construction. The hotel will use 100 rooftop solar panels to collect solar energy and is recycling 75 percent of its construction waste. It will use only 45 percent to 55 percent of the energy consumed by a conventional hotel. The property is capturing rainwater to irrigate the gardens. And it is restoring 700 linear feet of a stream on the property.
•Tarrytown House Estate in New York dug a well on its property to supply water for landscaping. It installed motion-sensitive thermostats in rooms so heating and cooling are not in heavy use when the room is empty. Water coolers are installed in meeting rooms, and all paper left behind from meetings is shredded and recycled.
•Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming uses wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro power to operate — equivalent to planting more than 5,000 trees over three years. It also offers bus passes to employees so they don’t have to drive their own cars from town. It spends more than $85,000 a year on the bus passes.
•Vermont’s new Snow Mountain Lodge, scheduled to open for the coming ski season, has installed just about every “green” practice a hotel can offer. It uses eco-friendly cleaning products (as many hotels now do), fluorescent bulbs, recycled paper products (such as notepads), in-room recycling bins, low-flow shower heads and toilets and motion detectors in public spaces to determine the need for air conditioning or heating. The lodge also is constructing a transfer lift between base areas so buses don’t have to run skiers back and forth.
•Kimpton Hotels’ Earthcare program includes using environmentally safe cleaning products, soy ink and recycled paper in its offices and water-saving bathroom fixtures, among other things, in all 42 properties.
•Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Granby, Colo., uses geothermal radiant heat in all of its new buildings. Its fireplaces are EPA-approved, and only environmentally sensitive cleaning and spa products are used.
•Le Meridien Hotel on Bora Bora has an established turtle sanctuary. Jumby Bay in Antigua also provides a safe haven for the endangered creatures.
•The White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine, keeps auto emissions down by shuttling guests from place to place in small electric cars.
•The Hotel Monaco in Denver donates all partly used bath amenities to a local women’s shelter. Besides recycling and other in-house programs, the hotel donates $10 of every night’s stay to the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit conservation group.