Green Hotel Eco News

How does the hotel cut energy consumption? Examples include efficient lighting and heating (the Environmental
Protection Agency gives top hotel performers an Energy Star rating), low-flow toilets and showers, and alternative energy like solar or wind power.

Does the hotel have a recycling program, and if so, how extensive is it? Among the options: aluminum, plastic, paper, gray water, composting, unused soaps and shampoos.

Does the hotel contribute to the local community and environmental causes? And, do they use local foods/products when possible?

Source: IndependentTraveler.com

There has been a growing sentiment around the U.S. about becoming more "Green". Corporations are creating initiatives and people are beginning to change their everyday habits to preserve the Earth for future generations.

But what does "Green" exactly mean? There may be different variations to the definition but seem to have a common mission: To become more conscious of the impact that people have on the Earth and begin to realistically change habits that will have a longterm-positive effect on the future.

In conjunction with National Geographic's Green Guide, the NGC Blog will begin to pass along a helpful, easy and more importantly effective tip to help people lessen their human footprint on the Earth.

This Week's Tip: Find a Green Hotel

Whether it's a weekend getaway or a week-long stay, make sure your hotel has the same green habits as you do at home. Since hotels are such large consumers of resources--the hospitality industry spends $3.7 billion a year on energy and typical hotels use 218 gallons of water per day per occupied room--it is especially important to support environmentally conscious businesses whenever possible. Here's how to find them:

Read More...

Summer is here and everyone’s off on holiday. Here are a few ways to reduce your carbon footprint without ruining your holiday.

1. Don’t go abroad. I know, the weather ain’t great, but Britain can be pretty spectacular. There are seaside towns like St Ives, Aldeburgh and Whitby; landscapes like Lakeland, Snowdonia or the Scottish Highlands or world class festivals like the Edinburgh Fringe. Or, if you must go abroad…

2. Take the train. If you are travelling to mainland Europe from England, why not take the Channel Tunnel rather than fly. There are direct trains to Paris, Brussels, Lille and Avignon and connections to pretty much everywhere. Trains use a fraction of the carbon dioxide that plains use and it’s not that expensive. London to Paris starts at £60.

Read More...

There are many other simple and effective strategies we can all start with TODAY. Take a cue from Destination Spa vacations and make a difference with these green ideas:

1. Use your canvas bags. Tote your bags with you when you go shopping to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic or paper bags. Chances are you have a bag from your last Destination Spa vacation or professional conference that you attended or a backpack that you use for picnics or hiking. Put it to good use next time you hit the grocery store, farmer’s market, or department store and say no to the store bags.
2. Drink from your water bottle. Using a refillable water bottle versus buying bottled water can have a big impact. It is a simple equation -- less packaging translates into less energy which is better for the environment.
3. Exercise outdoors.There are so many reasons to enjoy outdoor fitness activities – fresh air, scenery, free, and interaction with nature to name a few. And, it doesn’t require all of the motorized fitness equipment of a gym, the energy to operate a business, or your gas to get there.
4. Eat seasonally and locally produced foods whenever possible. Not only will the food taste fresher and be full of nutrients, but it will also be better for Mother Earth. The less the food has to travel, the less carbon dioxide from the trucks that ship it. Plus it will probably save you money.
5. When traveling, re-use the towels & sheets. Typical hotels use 218 gallons of water per day per occupied room. In addition to the large amounts of water used, excessive use of laundry detergents and other cleaning chemicals pose dangers to the environment and to the housekeeping staff. Many hotels will not replace your towels if you leave them hanging up neatly; if you're not sure, write a note for the housekeeping staff or notify the front desk.

Read the rest of the post...

The Green Book, by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen, has many useful tips for living, working, and traveling more sustainably. Before each chapter, a brief story is given, written by a celebrity about sustainable living in his or her life. The stories are fun, and give the reader a peak into probably unknown parts of the lives of Jennifer Aniston, Robert Redford, Martha Stewart, and others- that Jennifer Aniston takes three minute showers to conserve water, that Robert Redford used to spend his summers working in Yosemite, and that Martha Stewart only heats her house to 64°F because it is so well insulated. The stories seem unconnected to the chapters that follow them, but should nevertheless inspire a large audience, and are a nice break from reading so many tips. Each tip is presented with an impressive statistic about how if each person of a certain sized group of people conserved only a small amount of a certain resource, that it adds up to saving a massive amount of money, energy, or other resources. Some of the statistics are less good than others, though. And when you combine some of the tips, they sometimes seem to contradict each other. For example, in the “Travel” section, the third “simple step” is to “Pack lightly. Every additional ten pounds per traveler requires an additional 250 million gallons of jet fuel per year, which is enough to keep a 747 flying continuously for ten years.”

Read more...

Plant Sunflowers, Volunteer and More … Belize Eco-Lodge Offers Ten Tips to Nurture Birds through Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability

“Birds are the farmers of the world – help us to help them continue to sow their seeds.”

Petaluma, CA - Jodi and Vance Benté, proprietors of the recently opened Casa del Caballo Blanco Eco-Lodge in Belize, offer 10 tips to create environments that attract and nurture birds. They are also the founders and custodians of the not-for-profit Casa Avian Support Alliance (CASA) whose purpose is to address the needs of the avian community and the conservation of biodiversity in Belize that attracts and sustains over 530 species of migratory and resident birds spotted in a given year.

“We want to offer our guests something meaningful they can take home with them when they leave Belize. These are some simple but important actions we take in our own California community,” says Jodi Benté.

• Plant a tree so that local birds can nest, seek shelter and forage for food.
• Plant a sunflower or other plants that comprise bird friendly gardens; watch them gather food for their families and by dispersing the seed, create new gardens.
• Restore habitat and watersheds whenever possible rather than develop.
• Volunteer with local community organizations to assist with the care of wild birds or to participate in ‘green activities’ to learn ways to assist wildlife and to minimize your own footprint on the landscape.
• Recycle all of your paper and plastics; make sure old batteries, like those from flashlights and shop tools, etc. are disposed of properly – not in landfills.
• Avoid purchasing cans and bottles in six-packs with plastic collars; if you must, then be sure and cut each of the six enclosures so that birds, and other wildlife, will not become entangled and choke on them.
• Minimize or discontinue the use of products containing toxic compounds such as certain fertilizers and herbicides that accumulate in our water supply and atmosphere and threaten wildlife habitats.
• Reduce your use of critical resources by selecting products and vendors that manufacture and package with sustainability in mind.
• Consider re-use and remodeling prior to new development.
• Encourage your family to study the biodiversity in your community and learn, conserve and protect.

The Benté’s six-cabana, eco-friendly accommodation shares 23 acres with the Casa Avian Support Alliance. Guests are encouraged to participate in its work as part of a vacation that combines adventure, relaxation and personal contribution. The CASA project works closely with the Government of Belize’s efforts to protect critical habitat, the loss of which threatens the avian population. This is the first voluntourism program of its kind in Belize. It has been endorsed by the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Tourism Program (www.rainforest-alliance.org), Belize Audubon Society, Friends for Conservation and Development and Birds Without Borders.

ABOUT CASA del CABALLO BLANCO
The Casa’s hacienda-style Main House celebrates the region’s Hispanic culture with high, beamed ceilings, tile floors, hand-made furniture and interior design features hand-crafted by local artisans to evoke the footprint of an ordered, spiritual world of centuries ago. Nestled on a hillside overlooking the Mopan River Valley, the location provides a stunning view of the Mer de Verde, the “Green Ocean,” a site that could likely have been used in a similar manner by the Mayans. The guest quarters, six thatch-roofed, fully screen cabanas, all have en-suite bathrooms, refrigerators, hand-crafted furniture and Mayan-inspired fabrics.

Meals served in an airy, thatch-roofed dining room include Mayan food prepared in centuries-old Quiché, Mopan and Yucatecan traditions. Creole foods combine exotic Hispanic and Caribbean flavors. All produce is fresh from Casa’s own gardens and local markets and prepared locally by Belizeans.

ABOUT CASA AVIAN SUPPORT ALLIANCE (CASA)
On-site facilities provide a haven for avian wildlife recently freed from captivity or treated for injury or illness. Here birds can heal, rehabilitate and eventually be released back into their natural habitat. The facility is dynamic and will evolve annually with the guidance and cooperation of the Forest Department, Belize Audubon Society, Friends for Conservation and Development, Aves Sin Fronteras, and other organizations and experts from the avian community. Visit the alliance website for more information, www.casaavian.org

Lodge guests are also welcome to join its Passport Program that over time will showcase a half dozen other properties in the Americas with organizations who have similar goals and missions such as avian support.

For information on year-round educational programs and vacation packages, please visit www.casacaballoblanco.com or call 707-974-4942.

STI has created a unique carbon offset program for the Club by calculating Quintess, LRW’s Carbon Footprint: the total carbon dioxide emissions associated with the internal operations of each home. This includes:

**Home electricity consumption expressed in kilowatt-hours or megawatt-hours on a month-to-month basis;

**Square footage of common areas;

**Total number of rooms;

**Average occupancy rates; and

**Estimated total number of guests annually.

This program also enables Quintess, LRW members to positively impact the environment on their own by simply mentioning Leading Green when reserving an experience at any of Leading Hotel’s 440 hotels worldwide, or directly booking through http://www.lhwgreen.com/. LHW will make a corporate donation of 50 cents to STI for every night of a guests’ stay. And, if Club members want to make a financial donation on their own, they can use the STI carbon calculator, which is on the Quintess, LRW website, to calculate how much would be needed to offset the carbon footprint from their travel beyond their stays in Club homes.

Read more...

The environmental protesters who camped out near London’s Heathrow Airport last week and demonstrated noisily over the weekend had what most business travelers consider a radical agenda: A long-term reduction in flights to offset the carbon footprint of the world’s airlines.

I think my green credentials are pretty good; the perennially threatened Hudson River is literally at the edge of my backyard, so I have an up close and personal view of how humans mistreat nature. But I’ve never thought much about frequent travel and the environment. As much as I condemn their business practices and financial models, I’ve never thought of airlines as big, bad polluters. Nor have I paid much attention to my own actions on the road and how they might affect the environment.

But I think I get it now. We might want to continue to fly globally, but there’s no reason not to act locally to reduce business travel’s impact on the planet.

I’m going to leave the metaphoric elephant in the room—airlines’ carbon emissions—to the experts for now. But here are some small steps we can all take to become greener business travelers.

Soft Goods, Hard Impact
Partially for environmental reasons and partially because it reduces their overhead costs, hotels around the world have instituted in-room conservation efforts. They want you to use your bathroom towels more than once, and they would be thrilled if you took a pass on the daily change of bed linens.

“In the 30,000 hotels in the United States, there are more than 2 billion sheets washed every year and almost the same number of towels,” says luxury-hotel consultant Michael Matthews. “And 99 percent of the water used to do all that washing doesn’t get recycled.”

Read more...

4. Use a travel mug (and fork and spoon)

Many consider a steady supply of coffee a necessity for extended road trips, and take out food is convenient and inexpensive. However, the waste produced from meals and snacks on the road quickly adds up. Take along a travel mug for coffee and reusable plastic sports bottles for other beverages and water. Skips the straws if you can. Inexpensive plastic containers from your grocery store can hold snacks from home such as fruits, vegetable sticks and trail mix (another money saver).

You might also want to pack an inexpensive set of cutlery to use for takeout food rather than opting for plastic utensils (which are often wrapped in plastic as well). Also, you can request silverware and dish soap at your hotel if it isn’t already provided.

Need to know what items belong to which family member? Try permanent marker or nail polish to label items such as water bottles and utensils.

Read more tips...

In the end, I suppose the fact that hotels are pushing more environmentally benign practices is more important than why they are doing it. So, with that in mind, let me offer a few additional suggestions to facilitate the greening of hotels, motels, and inns everywhere:

1. Eliminate your obscene Internet access charges for guests who agree to receive an electronic copy of their bill instead of a loooong paper printout — entire forests will be saved!
2. Give Earth First! free use of your conference centers and lobbies to stage their awareness protests and offer your best corporate rates to the group’s members.
3. Rig your plumbing and lighting so that guests must listen to pre-recorded environmental messages from Al Gore before opening a faucet, flushing the toilet, or turning on a lamp.
4. Replace the tiny liquor and wine bottles in the mini-bars with full-size ones to lessen the burden of all those little plastic containers on community recycling efforts. Of course, the hotel should absorb the cost of the bigger bottles as their way of “paying” the world back for its plastic footprint.
5. Stop offering pay-for-view movies. That only encourages guests to watch television, which in turn causes more electricity consumption and leads to excessive couch-potatoism.

Read more...

When you reach your destination, walk or bike when you can, and be sure to use local bus services and cab companies when you can’t. The same goes for local restaurants and hotels; supporting local businesses enriches your travel experience and puts your tourism dollars to good work by helping to cultivate and maintain the community.

A more ambitious option for the environmentally and culturally savvy traveler is to book your holiday through an agency that specializes in sustainable tourism. Companies like Whole Travel and Ethos Travel are dedicated to planning vacations that minimize the negative impact of tourism on local communities while focusing on properties and activities that benefit the economy of your chosen destination.

If surrendering the details of your trip to a third party doesn’t appeal, you may want to research resort management and development companies like Six Senses. These businesses operate hotels and resorts in locations all over the world, and are committed to maintaining the ethos of responsible travel in their establishments.

Read more...