Green Hotel Eco News

Almost a year ago, Green Lodging News updated its readers on the progress states have made in creating and supporting green lodging efforts. At that time, it identified seven states with active green lodging programs. Today, at least eight states have one form of program or another. Each program is unique in its own way. These initiatives have become increasingly important over the past year; Florida’s governor, for example, will require his state’s employees to stay at Green Lodging Program hotels beginning January 1, 2008.

Here is a state-by-state summary of green lodging programs:

California—This state’s Green Lodging Program is run by the California Integrated Waste Management Board. Participants are asked to complete a one-page form that asks questions such as: Does your property use individually packaged amenities? Are programmable on/off timers/sensors used for lighting in low traffic/low occupancy areas? Hotels are determined to be Participants or Leaders based on their survey answers. Properties are inspected by a Waste Management Board representative. There are currently approximately 100 participants.

Florida—The Sunshine State’s Green Lodging Program is an effort by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to encourage the lodging industry to conserve and protect Florida’s natural resources. According to Chris Cate, spokesman for Florida’s DEP, the program currently has 25 certified properties, with another 46 applications in process. Participants must complete an application and commit to establishing baselines for environmental improvement. Once green initiatives are in place, applicants must undergo an on-site audit. Certified hotels must demonstrate ongoing progress from year to year to stay in the program.

Maine—In Maine, the Green Lodging Certification Program is managed by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Participants commit to using environmentally preferable cleaners, reducing waste, and minimizing energy and water consumption. They benefit from free, ongoing technical assistance from the Maine DEP. Applicants must complete a self-certification workbook. Businesses scoring 100 points in the workbook receive certification for two years. Participants must show improvement to continue in the program. Businesses are randomly selected for audits. Maine’s program, according to its website, currently has 52 participants—up from 20 last November.

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20+ lodging properties located in America’s most awesome, breathtaking national and state parks have joined the elite corps of “Green” Hotels Association® members. All the resorts, hotels and lodging properties in Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Ohio State Park Resorts & Conference Centers and North Georgia State Parks and Conference Centers and others managed by Amfac Parks & Resorts have recently joined “Green” Hotels Association®.

Commitment by the management of these fabulous properties and their staff for “greening” these properties is the result of their enthusiasm for learning and instituting important, new ways to protect and preserve these locations for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

Located in national and state parks stretching through nine states (Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming) and encompassing 37 lodging properties with 5,723 guestrooms, many of these properties are popular throughout the year.

Amfac is the largest park-management company in the US, and employs approximately 7,200 people during the peak season. Their mission is to be recognized as the leader in park and resort hospitality, and they want guests to be assured of professionally-managed hotels. With continued emphasis on environmentally-friendly tourism, Amfac’s environmental preservation and recycling programs at national parks have achieved widespread acclaim. More than 341 tons was recycled at Yellowstone in 1997, including aluminum, glass, cardboard, newspaper, computer paper, office paper and magazines. The Lied Conference Center uses bio-mass, a renewable fuel source, to generate heat, cooling and hot water.

With over 5,700 rooms committed, these properties normally accommodate hundreds of thousands of guests each year. Over 2,100 guestrooms in 9 locations at Yellowstone National Park and over 1,100 guestrooms at 9 sites in Grand Canyon National Park are included in the new membership. When the environmental program is in place, these guests will be able to participate which will help care for and protect these fabulous destinations. The overall results are expected to be far-reaching because guests, employees and vendor’s representatives will take new “green” ideas to their homes, businesses and communities.

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Let's face it, hotels haven't always been model citizens of the Global Village when it comes to protecting Mother Earth.

How many times have you walked into a hotel room to find the air conditioner blasting. Those freon fueled vicissitudes that control many hotel room climates can not be good for the environment. Furthermore, in the past, hotel and resort developers have cleared forests and moved rivers to get their golf courses, man made beaches, and monolithic resorts in just the right spot. And have you ever seen how liberally some of the cleaning crew uses aerosol spray?

However, what's in the past is in the past, and recently many hotels have become leaders in the green movement. These days, environmentalism is more than a political issue or a hippie pastime, it is a culture.

With that in mind we have culled together the Best Green Hotels in the U.S. that ooze green culture. There are literally thousands of hotels across the world employing green policies of some kind, but these hotels truly represent the best of green culture. Whether you are traveling to Portland, Oregon for business, New Mexico for a getaway, or Santa Cruz to get high and surf, the hotels on this list are for fans of Vanity Fair Green Issue cover cub Knut.

Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco
The Orchard Garden makes the green list for a very big reason--it's the only hotel built to the nationally accepted standards for green buildings put forth by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). In-room the hotel employs environmentally friendly policies like a key card energy control system, chemical-free cleaning products, recycling bins, soy-based inks and a strict no-smoking policy.

An added green bonus? During our stay there, one of the elevators smelled like something really green. Plus the hotel is still offering opening intro rates of $169 so it's also a bargain.

Alma Del Monte, Taos, New Mexico
The Alma del Monte, a five-bedroom luxury rental, makes the list for its top-to-bottom green design. The place uses solar panels, rainwater harvesting, has Pumice-crete adobe style walls, an addition made of recycled Styrofoam, low-volume toilets, and energy saving fluorescent light fixtures. The hotel also does composting, recycling, rainwater harvesting and cleaning with green products. Perhaps the best eco-friendly part of the place? The straw bale dog house (shown here) for your furry companions.

Hotel Green, Nantucket, Mass.
With a name like Hotel Green, this little inn in Nantucket from shoe designer Vanessa Noel was bound to get on our best green hotels list. But it's actually green inside too with an organic restaurant, 10 rooms filled with some recycled furniture (think cardboard chairs), hemp towels, artwork with milk-based paints and all-natural cleaning products. Perhaps the piece de resistance here is the web site. The site say it's conserving energy by simply stating its phone number and email address with only a photo page to supplement it. Uh-oh, does this mean green HTML is going to be the next, next thing?

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Sensing strong interest and much confusion from the hotel sector, the Hotel Developers Conference, a professional organization that hosts an annual industry meeting, plans a conference on environmentally friendly hotels in March.

Some hotels have turned to established programs in their efforts to go green. Marriott, for example, in 2001 joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program, which has given it public recognition for using lower-energy flourescent lighting and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Marriott touts its accomplishments on its Web site under the heading "Green Marriott."

A handful of hotels have gotten certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit group in Washington that grades commercial buildings on areas such as water efficiency, energy use, building materials and indoor air quality. Among them are a Hilton in Vancouver, Wash., and a Marriott at the University of Maryland. But the standards aren't designed specifically for hotels, and retrofitting older hotels to qualify can be prohibitively expensive.

Among other options, Starwood is considering getting certification for its first Element hotel, scheduled to open next July in Lexington, Mass. Depending on what's decided, green measures could add 2% to 4% to the planned $16 millon budget for the hotel, Mr. Lakas estimates.

Green Seal, another non-profit organization in Washington, has an extensive certification program for hotels and motels. The evaluation takes up to three months and costs from $1,950 to $3,000 annually, depending on the size of the hotel. Only 43 hotels nationwide have the certification. The group says interest is picking up, and it is hoping to have another 20 hotels in Chicago certified by this fall.

The "Green" Hotels Association, a Houston-based professional group that charges hotels $100-$750 a year to join, offers a list of approved vendors for products including water-saving toilets and chlorine alternatives. But they aren't vetted beyond a requirement that they send company literature explaining how the product is green. "We take their word for it," says Patty Griffin, president and founder of the association, which has also since 1993 sold a cards to hotels that nudge guests to reuse towels.

But many lodging operators in the group report mixed results in their efforts to go green, even though customers like it.

"There are so many companies promoting 'green products,' the challenge is doing enough research to identify which products are truly green," says Dean Crane, vice president of engineering for Aramark Harrison Lodging, with properties in settings from Lake Powell in Arizona to Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. "There are many cleaning products that just don't hold up or achieve what they are marketed for."

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Element Hotel in Lexington that is slated to open next year will use water-saving devices that will conserve an estimated 4,358 gallons of water per room each year; will use dispensers for shampoos and lotions instead of bottles; and compact fluorescent light bulbs to save energy.

Kimpton Hotels uses recycled paper, soy-based inks for stationery; energy saving lighting, water saving shower heads and faucets. They also encourage guests to go green by offering a free or discounted parking incentive for guests who drive hybrids.

At InterContinental Chicago, a motion-detection system conserves lighting and air-conditioning energy when guest rooms aren’t occupied; a towel and sheet are changed once in three days unless the guests request it. Leftover food and table scraps go to composting sites.

Four Seasons: Mineral water bottles are replaced with local tap water in pitchers.

While the hospitality industry is doing its bit towards the environment, their efforts would be a great success if the guests co-operate by minimizing wastes.

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LEED Rated Hotels: The Platinum Standard

The nationally recognized standard for the design, construction and operation of green buildings, LEED takes a “whole-building approach” to sustainability by setting benchmarks in five areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

In practice, a building can be certified at one of four levels: certificate, silver, gold, or platinum. There are minimum requirements in each of the five categories, with the opportunity to accrue additional points to achieve higher ratings.

Currently, the highest rated hotel in the US is the LEED Gold-certified Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa (pictured above) in the wine country of Northern California (pictured above). Built of wood harvested from sustainable forests, the hotel also features carpets and tiles made from recycled materials, as well as solar panels for electricity generation. Compared to traditional hotels, the Gaia Napa Valley uses 26% less energy and 45% less water. The rooms even contain a copy of Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth, (in addition to the traditional Bible, of course).

There are three other LEED certified hotels in the US: The Inn & Conference Center in College Park, Maryland, the Hilton Vancouver in Washington, and The Orchard Garden Hotel in San Francisco (pictured at left). For those adventurous souls among us, there is also a LEED certified hotel in Dambulla, Sri Lanka: the Kandalama Hotel.

The Green Hotel Association

Hotels need not be LEED certified to have adopted green practices that can make a real difference. Many hotels have joined the Green Hotels Association. These hotels have adopted practices or technologies that reduce their impact on the environment, often well before it was common in the industry. To find green hotels across the U.S., visit our Travel & Tourism Section.

For example, Sadie Cove Lodge in Alaska, built in 1972, uses its own hydroelectric system to generate all of its own power, making it completely “off the grid”. Other hotels might use strategies that aren’t so obvious, like the use of local, native plants that require little watering, or a reflective roof that dissipates and reflects heat, reducing the “heat island” effect common in urban areas. Other green practices include using ecologically-sound cleaning products, instituting recycling and composting programs, and buying local food. The possibilities for hotels to improve on business as usual are endless!

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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.

As president of Atman Hospitality, Wen-I Chang built the first LEED Gold-certified hotel project in the US, the 133-room Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa in American Canyon, CA. The project opened in November of last year. Chang said that constructing the Napa Valley property to LEED Gold standards added about 15% to the development costs. However, he noted that he has a second project now under construction in which the premium to build with environmentally friendly specifications will be between 6% and 8%.

Gary Golla, an associate with the Portland, OR-architecture firm SERA, said he has seen two studies on the issue. One said the cost to go green increases construction costs by 5%, while another says it has no significant impact. Therefore, he said the cost probably falls between those two estimates. The expense, he added, further depends on the level of LEED certification the building aspires to and where the project is being constructed. His firm is currently involved in the development of two hotels in Portland--the 331-room the Nines, part of the Starwood Luxury Collection, and 256-key Courtyard by Marriott--using green principals. Golla pointed that Oregon has “great incentives” to go green.

The Hilton Portland & Executive Tower in Oregon meets the Green Seal standard; cards issued by the "Green" Hotels Association; a hotel chair by Furnature, billed as organic and chemical-free. As more hotels try to become more environmentally friendly, in part to satisfy customers they say are increasingly demanding it, they find themselves in unfamiliar territory cluttered with "green" products and hype -- but without many reliable guideposts for what's effective.

Major corporations including Marriott International Inc. and Hilton Hotels Corp. are studying options as they make decisions on far-reaching environmental initiatives intended to appeal to consumers with a conscience -- and at the same time save on water, energy and waste, without downgrading the quality of service.

Some hotels have turned to established programs in their efforts to go green. Marriott, for example, in 2001 joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program, which has given it public recognition for using lower-energy flourescent lighting and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Marriott touts its accomplishments on its Web site under the heading "Green Marriott."

A handful of hotels have gotten certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit group in Washington that grades commercial buildings on areas such as water efficiency, energy use, building materials and indoor air quality. Among them are a Hilton in Vancouver, Wash., and a Marriott at the University of Maryland. But the standards aren't designed specifically for hotels, and retrofitting older hotels to qualify can be prohibitively expensive.

Among other options, Starwood is considering getting certification for its first Element hotel, scheduled to open next July in Lexington, Mass. Depending on what's decided, green measures could add 2% to 4% to the planned $16 millon budget for the hotel, Mr. Lakas estimates.

Green Seal, another non-profit organization in Washington, has an extensive certification program for hotels and motels. The evaluation takes up to three months and costs from $1,950 to $3,000 annually, depending on the size of the hotel. Only 43 hotels nationwide have the certification. The group says interest is picking up, and it is hoping to have another 20 hotels in Chicago certified by this fall.

The "Green" Hotels Association, a Houston-based professional group that charges hotels $100-$750 a year to join, offers a list of approved vendors for products including water-saving toilets and chlorine alternatives. But they aren't vetted beyond a requirement that they send company literature explaining how the product is green. "We take their word for it," says Patty Griffin, president and founder of the association, which has also since 1993 sold a cards to hotels that nudge guests to reuse towels.

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Eco-consciousness is reaching new heights nowadays, especially in North America. PlanetOut has made up a list of the top 10 eco-friendly properties of 2008.

1. The Orchard Garden Hotel
San Francisco
This LEED-certified with nontoxic paints, glues and varnishes, energy-efficient lighting.

2. 70 Park Avenue
New York City
In addition to Kimpton Hotels' company-wide EarthCare eco-program, 70 Park Avenue goes one step further with the repurposing of kitchen oil in biodiesel.

3. Gaia Napa
American Canyon, Calif.
Constructed with as many recycled materials and as little energy as possible. Recycled carpet content and low-emission paint.

4. Zion Lodge
Zion, Utah
Green Suites (including sustainable features such as bamboo floors, recycled carpet content, organic linens and key card lighting controls) are testing grounds for the ambitious project of making all 5,000 Xanterra-operated rooms as environmentally sustainable as possible.

5. Hotel Triton
San Francisco
Hotel Triton started with an eco-floor back in the 1990s; this spread to all floors in 2003

6. Hilton
Vancouver, Wash.
This hotel just across the bridge from Portland, Ore., recycled 75 percent of its construction waste.

7. Marriott
Bethesda, Md.
The blueprint for future green Marriott hotels, this was the first hotel and conference center in the United States to win LEED certification for its environmental design.

8. Hotel Monaco
Seattle
Green hues into his kitchen, from eco-initiatives such as recycling, composting food and using organic, local foods and sustainable seafood, to making the switch to recyclable or recycled to-go containers.

9. Hotelito Desconocido
Jalisco, Mexico
Solar power and candles are used instead of electricity and accommodations are bamboo, palm leaf,and clay huts in a protected wetland estuary overlooking the Pacific.

10. Habitat Suites
Austin, Texas
Natural pesticides (ladybugs!), cooling shade trees and a substantial amount of its power from a photovoltaic system, feature at the Habitat Suites.

Honorable mentions:
Maho Bay Camp, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islandds

DoubleTree Lloyd Center, Portland, Ore.

The Equus Hotel, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii

Solage, Calistoga, Calif.

Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui, Hawaii

The Woodstocker Inn, Woodstock, Vt.

Ambrose Hotel, Los Angeles

Seaport Hotel, Boston;

Ahu Pohaku Ho'omaluhia, Kohala, Big Island, Hawaii;

Inn by the Sea, Cape Elizabeth, Maine;