By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

If you’ve been taking your home green, you know how ideas can feed off each other. Someone gets picky about paper recycling; someone else becomes the food waste arbiter; pretty soon everyone has their eco-role and the household’s carbon footprint is shrinking.

Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants realized early on that green grows like that. The hospitality chain, with roots in San Francisco, has a history of putting eco-friendly ideas in place. Even before green hotel or green restaurant designations were developed, Kimpton was experimenting with eco-friendly practices at its San Francisco properties, such as the Hotel Triton, where motion sensors turn off lights and 60 percent of the waste gets recycled.

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From Green Right Now Reports

In response to its members’ interest in green hotels, AAA said it will now designate AAA Approved lodgings that have been eco-certified through leading government or private programs.

A bright green “ECO” symbol will identify eco-friendly lodgings in the new 2010 editions of the AAA TourBook guides and on AAA.com. Additionally, travelers will be able to customize their hotel searches on the AAA web site to show green properties first in search results.

“The new ECO symbol serves as a notice to AAA members that a property has taken steps to become an environmental advocate,” Michael Petrone, director of AAA Tourism Information Development, said in a statement. “We are pleased to publish this information as a service to members who make sustainability a factor in their lodging selection.”

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It’s a rare hotel these days that doesn’t offer to not wash your sheets, in the interest of conserving water. A handful of hotels go further, touting their bamboo flooring, low-flow faucets and other flourishes.

But get ready traveler, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There’s an avalanche of green hospitality heading your way as some 700 hotels queue up to complete their LEED certifications with the US Green Building Council over the next year or so, and after their environmental inductions, you can bet they’ll be serving up more than just local greens. In the competitive travel industry, they’ll be competing for eco-kudos, showcasing everything from their fly ash foundations to their roof-top herb gardens.

For the savvy and weary business traveler, as well as the mom-and-pop tourist, this could be a fun new era. You’ll be treated to organic yogurt, natural mattresses and air quality systems. But it also holds perils for both guests and hotel operators.

Guests wanting to go green could quickly be confused by a cacophony of appeals. Travelocity and Orbitz now rate hotels on their eco offerings. AAA is going to stamp entries in its 2010 book with a green symbol denoting the supposed environmentally elite.

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By Clint Williams and Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

Sustainability and nature appreciation walk hand in hand. But surprisingly, there are still just a few U.S. vacation venues lodged lightly in nature’s embrace. If you want to “go green” you can camp out all over North America, but you can’t necessarily find a hotel that hugs the woods (or the beach) and boasts full green credentials and white linen service.

Here are a handful of green getaways that nestle nature, but don’t necessarily involve nesting with nature. We set the bar fairly low, requiring that these hotels have mattresses, hot food, indoor showers, and a LEED rating of some sort. We begin with Callaway Gardens, a great place to enjoy a respite from urban hustle amid botanical delights.

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By John DeFore
Green Right Now

Somewhere in between the sleep-away camps, beach excursions and baseball games of summer, kids and parents alike generally see the appeal of the sand-free floors and refrigerated air of a good museum. Institutions across the country know this is a great time to squeeze some education into kid-friendly, entertaining exhibitions; here’s a list of some of the best nature-oriented attractions for vacationers who’ve felt a bit too much heat this month.

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By Christopher Peake
Green Right Now

Aquariums are wonderful places to spend a summer day: if the weather is cool you can stay outdoors, if it’s hot there are indoor exhibits. Menacing sharks, beautifully-colored fish, gliding sea turtles, manta rays, sea snakes, sea horses, penguins and birds and river otters and performing orcas and porpoises all represent what is most beautiful and exciting about the waters of Planet Earth.

But they also represent a world that is disappearing quicker than we thought possible, and this is where aquariums hold a key to the future of water creatures.

Aquariums have realized that they must conduct research and they must also show us what is alive, what is dying and what we can do to balance it all. And so they tie their exhibits and their activities back to conservation, and tell us how we can help.

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By John DeFore
Green Right Now

The old-fashioned American road trip — packing the kids up and driving from one motor lodge to the next — may seem less than 100% wholesome these days, what with eco-conscious drivers becoming as sensitive to the amount of CO2 they’re generating as they are to cries of “are we there yet?” from the back seat.

But getting out into the natural world remains one of the best ways to introduce children — and city-dwelling adults, for that matter — to the environment we all want to preserve. And a well planned road trip can provide vacationers with an array of views and experiences that’s stunning enough to make a phrase like “ecosystem diversity” suddenly sound like a tangible good worth fighting for instead of a dry academic concern.

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By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

Want to spend the summer restoring a wildlife habitat on the Dolores River? There is a camp for that. Or would you prefer learning first-hand how to cultivate a thriving organic farm? There is a camp for that, too.

With more than 5,000 overnight camps and more than 1,400 teen tours across the nation, there is a camp to suit the interests of almost every child. But we’re not talking basic glue noodles to paper, play tether ball and call-it-a-day sort of camps. We’re talking traveling the world, adapting to foreign cultures, nurturing wildlife and embracing conservation.

And the best part is these summer options are incorporating green practices and green teachings into every aspect of their programs.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It can be a challenge to update an historic building, let alone transform it into a model of green modernity. Rattling pipes crowd walls that need new duct work; old fixtures adhere stubbornly to aging walls and facades retain character, but heating and cooling – not so much.

Still, the historic Heathman Hotel in downtown Portland has recently undergone two green upgrades, and is determined to become a model of sustainability, while sacrificing none of its landmark historic elegance.

The 81-year-old Heathman, like most vintage urban hotels, has been through many nips and tucks over the decades. It got its first green redo about three years ago with the renovation of the guest bedrooms and living areas and the addition of a new heating and cooling system. The project, which won financial incentives from the Energy Trust of Oregon, and included switching to CFL light bulbs, proved enlightening: The changes trimmed energy usage by 20 to 30 percent at the 150-room hotel.

“My return on investment, we realized that in less than two years; a year and half for the HVAC investment,” said hotel general manager Chris Erickson. “It was a wise idea and now as we move into the future, it’s all straight to the bottom line.”

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By Sommer Saadi
Green Right Now

Spa guests, already conscious about the health of their bodies, are starting to choose pampering experiences that keep the well-being of the environment in mind as well.

They still want to be indulged, say spa operators, but some are opting for experiences and products that soothe and improve, without nature-damaging ingredients.

Rona Berg, editor in chief of Organic Beauty magazine, says spa guests now look at what is in the products, where it comes from, who produces it and whether it is sustainable. Some even want to know if the company they’re supporting is giving back to the community.

“Consumer demand for healthier, eco-friendly and organic products isn’t showing any signs of stopping,” Berg says. “We’re undergoing a cultural paradigm shift and organic beauty is definitely one aspect of it.”

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By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now

Surprise that special someone or yourself with a green getaway this Valentine’s Day.
While planning your weekend getaway, don’t forget there are a wide variety of green vacations that are available.

The Avalon Hotel and Spa features packages for sweethearts or singles this Valentine’s Day. The Avalon Hotel was built in Portland and holds a U.S. Green Building Council LEED Silver Certification. The hotel is located on the Willamette River, an area which is a protected green space. The site has over 8,000 square feet of protected natural habitat that helps to sustain the butterfly population of the region.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The multi-edged issues facing the travel industry as it moves toward becoming more green are not hard to envision. First, there’s that sticky matter of getting there – by jet? by car?

There’s a certain built-in, un-green aspect at the core of tourism.

But that said, there are many ways travelers can be less consumptive and more supportive of eco-friendly practices. They can stay at conservation-minded hotels; places that don’t wash your sheets automatically every day; that serve local food and arrange low-impact tours for guests.

Online travel company Travelocity has taken its first steps toward helping consumers find and patronize greener destinations by launching an eco-friendly directory. The Green Directory aims to help travelers sort the green from the “green washed,” and so far features more than 200 hotels and resorts many of which already claim to be carbon neutral, according to the company.

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