When Ric Richards recently acquired an aging McDonalds in Cary, N.C., he knew the place needed an overhaul.  The 25-year-old store was fraying at the edges.

LED lighting at Cary McDonalds

Richards decided to give these particular golden arches a green touch.

Once he’d decided that the building needed replacing, the decision to go eco-friendly was not difficult. Richards knew it made sense from a business standpoint – it would cut energy costs dramatically – and he figured it would resonate with the educated customers living in the Research Triangle region, especially those interested in lower-carbon living.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,’’ said the owner-operator whose green restaurant celebrated its grand opening this winter. “We all need to be more geared for sustainability as we move into the future. We need to build buildings or live at home using fewer resources.”

Creating the third green-credentialed restaurant in the nation proved just a little easier in the Raleigh-Durham area, because the leading LED manufacturer Cree Lighting is just down the road.

Cree representatives, Richards and architect Logan Luzadr of LMHT Architects collaborated to light the restaurant’s public spaces completely with LEDs, which use less than 20 percent of the energy consumed by comparable incandescent lighting and only about half the energy used by CFL lights.

Virtually all of the restaurant’s lights are LEDs, making the LEED (for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) Gold-rated building a showcase of state-of-the art lighting.

Not only are the LEDs more efficient than other types of lighting, they don’t contain any mercury, which has been a downside of CFLs.

“If you didn’t know the lighting in McDonald’s was LED, you probably wouldn’t notice, but that’s the point. The Cree LED lights in the Cary McDonald’s give off the same beautiful light you would expect from an incandescent but consume just a fraction of the energy,” said Cree executive Gary Trott. “This allows the store to layer in accent lighting for a more pleasing environment while still meeting LEED-certification standards.”

Lighting doesn’t just come from a socket, however, and Luzadr’s design assured that day times at the McD’s would be naturally lit. The building was constructed with 360-degrees of windows in a cupola above the eating area with 19 Solatubes – tunnels that carry sky light – spread across the restaurant.

“Aesthetically the restaurant looks terrific,” said Richards, who explained that lighting was a key focus of the rebuild because it does double duty, saving energy and improving the feel of the cafe.

The other aspect of green building that Richards wanted to be sure to get right was the heating and cooling system. His “green team” of Luzadr, operations manager Tony Myers, green site designer Brian Stoltz of Commercial Site Design in Raleigh and green advisor Skanska USA, came up with an enclosed Hydronic Water Boiler System (available in residential versions)  that cuts energy use, in part, by using humidity to keep the restaurant at an even temperature.

The technologically advanced system gives the restaurant a different tactile feel, Richards says.

“I own seven restaurants and I can tell the difference. I just built another one (with the) same style and design, very aesthetic…and it’s energy efficient, but it feels different.’’

Richards estimates his return on the green energy investments will be just five years. Figuring the ROI on the other green changes will not be an easy mathematical formula, but the improved aesthetics and environmentally sensitive changes are tangible but immeasurable rewards.

Among the other features in the LEED-certified builiding:

• All the seating and cabinets and other décor elements were glued together with lower VOC adhesives

• Table tops are made of wheatboard and sunflower seeds (recovered from food processing) or bamboo, a renewable source.

• Countertops are Vetrazzo, which uses recycled concrete and glass.

Speaking of concrete, the concrete from the demolition of the predecessor store was sent out for recycling. The concrete that was installed in the parking lot is recycled stock. While the green team was pondering the heat island effects of being encircled by concrete, an inevitable outcome of being a drive-through restaurant, they added areas for vegetation to curb runoff and mitigate heat effects.

One day someone on the team muttered that they should think about putting in a couple places for electric vehicles to plug-in. Heads snapped. Of course they should. So they did, partnering with NovaCharge in Florida to install two charging stations, which have already been used.

Inside, energy and water savings continue with low-flow faucets and toilets that use 1/10^th of a gallon to flush, a vast savings over even the going green standard of a 1.6 gallon flush.

Topping it all off are placards throughout the restaurant that explain the changes, as well as an electronic presentation of how the building was constructed.

Now, as for that McDonald’s food…it’s being prepared with EnergyStar appliances. But it bears acknowledging that, in all honesty, a big burger is not the poster food for the green movement.

However, a recent  sustainability report by the fast-food giant shows that McDonald’s is well aware of changing tastes, as well as pressures on the food supply. The report noted that 98 percent of the whitefish used in Filet-O-Fish sandwiches came from fisheries with “favorable sustainability ratings” and that healthy sides for Happy Meals are offered in the top McD markets. Those sides include fruit bags, cherry tomatoes, corn cups and “Apple Dippers.” And there are those salads and parfaits. So those who eschew burgers, can at least chew something else.

The report also said that 80 percent of the cooking oil used in McDonald’s in Europe is converted into biodiesel. The EU has a stronger biodiesel network than the U.S. But more and more U.S. restaurants are recycling their cooking oil, including the Cary McDonald’s.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Darden Restaurants today announced that it has begun a system-wide sustainable restaurant design initiative involving the use of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards in its restaurant design process for all new restaurants and, where feasible, restaurant remodels.

The company, which operates 1,800 restaurants, said the initiative is part of its broader sustainability efforts aimed at limiting business impact on the environment while also enhancing the operational efficiency of its restaurants.

Darden’s three largest brands – Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse – are designing eight restaurants to achieve LEED certification from the United States Green Building Council. The company said it plans to apply learnings from those eight restaurants to new restaurants and remodels in the future.

“Our goal with this initiative is to utilize each of the eight restaurants as a learning lab,” Suk Singh, senior vice president of Development for Darden, said in a statement. “While we may not seek LEED certification for every restaurant we build or remodel, we can make a positive impact by learning from the eight restaurants where we are seeking LEED certification and applying best practices across our entire portfolio.”

The Olive Garden in Jonesboro, Ark., which opened for business last month, is the first of eight restaurants the company is designing to meet LEED standards. It features a number of sustainable design elements, including:

• Recycled building materials – Supplies such as sheetrock, doors and windows were made from recycled content. The flooring features carpet squares made from 100 percent recycled materials.
• Increased use of natural light – Incorporating more windows more frequently into the building’s exterior reduces the need for artificial light.
• Energy efficient equipment and fixtures – Items such as Energy Star rated equipment and low-flow water nozzles in the kitchen, as well as automatic faucets in the restrooms, reduce energy and water usage. New LED light bulbs that utilize seven watts of energy and last up to 50,000 hours replace bulbs that used 75 watts and had to be changed two to three times a year.
• Reclaimed heat – To supplement the heating of hot water in the kitchen, heat expelled from the condensing units of the HVAC system and the Freezer/Cooler condensing units is reclaimed and used to heat water.

Darden, the world’s largest full-service restaurant company, recently opened its new corporate headquarters facility in Orlando which is on track to earn LEED Gold certification from the USGBC. It’s the largest LEED Gold new construction project in the state of Florida.

In addition to Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, Darden operates The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52.

Much as a forest fire clears the land and leaves behind essential nutrients to enrich a new generation of growth, the devastation of the travel and meetings industry caused by a global economic collapse has left a few seedlings. One of them is the nascent green meeting industry, which has more than gotten a foothold. In many respects, green meetings are fast becoming the only kind of meetings.

The Addison Conference Centre in Texas features large windows to let in light, yet overhangs help block out mid-day heat. (Photo: The Town of Addison)

This new reality is driven in part by the needs of cash-strapped corporations and associations to trim costs and eliminate waste – an approach that’s central to the green meeting industry. And as large corporations increasingly measure the carbon footprints of all their activities – travel to meetings and conferences is getting more  scrutiny.

But the green meeting industry suffers the same identity issues facing any adolescent. For one, the terms “green meeting” and “sustainable meeting” can have different meanings to different people. That’s why the industry is moving to release a new standard in the coming weeks – a set of requirements that will finally get everyone in the event-planning industry on the same page. At least, that is the hope.

That standard, and its underlying components, will be the key topic of discussion when the Green Meeting Industry Council holds its 2010 Sustainable Meetings Conference in Denver from Feb. 9-11. The council, formed in 2003, has seen a recent surge in membership, jumping from 135 members in 2008 to more than 500 members in 17 countries today. 

“The number of planners and companies planning green meetings has been increasing every year for the last few years,” said Tamara Kennedy-Hill, executive director of the GMIC. “According to meeting industry surveys, about 51 percent of meeting planners – corporate and association – say that they’re planning or expect to plan a green meeting.

“So we’re seeing that the awareness is increasing but the actual practice of ‘what does that mean’ – the definition has been changing each year and creating confusion in the marketplace. People will say they are planning a green meeting and they’ll think that means just recycling or cutting back on bottled water usage – and those are elements – but the sophistication of what that really means as the integration into their events has really shifted, and that’s why there’s been such a push for standards.”

With support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the new standard is being drafted by the Convention Industry Council’s Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and will be voted on by the venerable standards-setting agency ASTM International.

The standard will focus on nine sectors within the planning process:

• Accommodations
• Audio/Visual and Production
• Communications and Marketing
• Destinations
• Exhibits
• Food and Beverage
• Meeting Venue
• On-Site Offices
• Transportation

“It will be a way for planners to go through and get a strong checklist for facilities and comparing them to each other,” Kennedy-Hill said. “It’s really going to help define what it means to have a green meeting because there will be a benchmark comparison.”

Green meetings make use of sustainable products, such as biodegradable cups.

And once the standard is finalized, it will fall to the non-profit Green Meeting Industry Council to help put them into practice. “What we’re focusing on is making sure that once these standards get launched, they’re getting used in the marketplace,” Kennedy-Hill said.

To that end, GMIC’s upcoming conference will not only cover the concepts outlined in the green meeting standard, it will implement them within the event. For example, to reduce paper for the event, the bios of the speakers are not listed in the program but rather uploaded to social media sites in advance.  Denver was selected to host the event because its Colorado Convention Center has a lengthy list of green features and is located in a pedestrian-friendly area.

All of this activity comes amid a growing shift in the corporate environment, where meeting planners are now asking frequent questions about green practices.

Rob Bourestom, who manages the Addison Conference Centre and Addison Theatre Centre in Addison, Texas, said he’s seen requests for sustainable meeting practices increase significantly in the last year and a half. The center, which hosts about 650 events per year, has responded by seeking out more green vendors and caterers (especially those that offer local and organic choices); adding wi-fi so attendees can distribute documents electronically and adding energy-saving lighting and low-water plumbing fixtures.

“That’s really required to host someone like the U.S. Green Building Council,” he said, recalling a USGBC event at the North Texas facility just north of Dallas.

Addison’s conference center, like many newer styled meeting facilities, features large exterior windows to let in natural light, but with overhangs that block the heat from the mid-day sun.  The adjoining theater has been adding LED stage lighting, which is vastly more energy efficient than the previous lights.

It’s not just city centers that have moved to attract the greener-thinking convocations. Major hotel chains are beginning to offer more options for meetings, such as washable linens in place of paper tablecloths, pitchers of water to replace the bottled variety and “back of the house” changes such as food waste recycling that lower the carbon footprint of events.

Marriott, among others, is facilitating greener gatherings by presenting planners with a menu of alternative actions so they craft an event within their own eco-comfort zone. “A lot of big companies have meeting planners that bid out conferences,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Hampton. “We’ve seen more and more of those meeting planners asking about our environmental initiatives.”

Kennedy-Hill says many corporations now have sustainability reporting requirements or they are part of carbon disclosure projects, so they have to track all their areas of impact.  “And first they are looking internally, if they produce widgets or whatever they are looking to reduce their emissions, but then they also are looking at their business travel. They’re starting to look and measure and asking more questions about green hotels and business travel expectations because they’re going to have to put that into their own sustainability report.”

None of this would be happening if the economics didn’t work. But event planners are usually able to identify cost savings that make holding a green meeting a lower-cost or, at worst, a break-even proposition.

“For the most part it’s cost saving, especially for the planner side,” said Kennedy-Hill. “Different things you’re doing are costs savings. You’re looking at technology and innovation to enhance your event. There are trade-offs in some areas. You might spend a bit more on organic food choices, but you saved on your printing costs because you’re not having a big program and you saved on your mailing costs.”

Facilities see an upside as well, from not only the ability to attract groups looking to hold a green event, but also from energy savings. In Orlando, the Orange County Convention Center, the nation’s second largest, has rolled out a wide range of green initiatives. In one project , new low-wattage LED lights from Albeo Technologies replaced aging 400-watt metal halide fixtures that cut 325 watts of power per fixture. The combined energy and maintenance savings achieved a  payback in less than one year, and the installation is estimated to eliminate more than 1,400,000 lbs of carbon over its life.

“This needs to be part of your business model,” said Kennedy-Hill. “Green meetings – sustainable meetings – should be an integration of looking at  where can you minimize your impacts, how can you reduce overall and how does that save you money. It has to be connected.  It doesn’t make sense to do something that’s going to put you out of business.”

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Consumers are being more conscious now than ever before of their own sustainable practices. They are buying from local farmers markets, recycling, and switching to LED lights.

But when a person leaves home, say to go out to eat, they could pack on the carbon calories without realizing it — especially if the restaurant they visit isn’t treading lightly on the environment.

According to the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), the certification body aiming to create an environmentally sustainable restaurant industry, an average restaurant uses 300,000 gallons of water and produces 150,000 pounds of garbage a year. Even worse, the restaurant industry as a whole, which includes approximately 900,000 restaurants in the United States, is the largest consumer of electricity in the commercial sector.

The GRA has certified 265 restaurants in the U.S. Those green restaurants have taken multiple steps to use less energy, save on food and packaging and improve their carbon and food footprints.

Austin's Barr Mansion is certified green (Photo: Suzy Q.)

Some of the changes are virtually invisible. At Barr Mansion, an Austin events restaurant that the GRA cites as a star performer, 97 percent of the waste is diverted from the landfill by recycling or composting.

Other green actions are more noticable, such as Barr Mansion’s hemp tablecloths, organic food and a roof made from recycled concrete.

Many restaurants, yet to be certified, are taking initial green steps in the normal course of business. They are using motion sensors on bathroom faucets to save water, programmable thermostats to temper energy use, bulk packaging to cut down on individual wrapping, and serving water upon request to preserve that resource, and save the water it would take to wash the glass.

If every restaurant put these basic changes into place, the energy and water savings would add up. According to GRA, if just one quarter of restaurants in the United States only served water upon request, the country could save 26 million gallons of water each year.

Restaurants can take other inexpensive steps toward sustainability: In the office, staff can switch to 100% post-consumer recycled paper in the office and recycle office ink cartridges.  In the kitchen, changing to a readily available $30 low-flow spray valve can save hundreds of dollars on the water bill. Adding and maintaining Energy Star appliances also helps.

Saving food can be among the most gratifying ways to change. Kitchens usually prepare more food for the day than is eaten, but they can plan for leftovers by segregating organic waste, which can be composted. Partnering with a local food bank or Salvation Army also can put quality leftovers to good use.

GRA is currently working with 600 restaurants, including the 265 that are already certified. Restaurants need 100 points on a scale developed by the GRA to become certified.

Most restaurants fall between 40-60 points in their first assessment, according to Colleen Oteri, GRA’s Communications Manager.

There are five requirements that restaurants must meet to be GRA certified:

1. Accumulate a total of 100 points
2. Meet minimum points in each category
   1. Energy
   2. Water
   3. Waste
   4. Disposables
   5. Chemical & Pollution Reduction
   6. Sustainable Food
   7. Sustainable Furnishings & Building Materials
   8. Full-scale recycling program
   9. Free of polystyrene foam (no Styrofoam allowed)
   10. Annual education program

GRA has a detailed explanation of its 4.0 Standards on their website.

Barr Mansion is GRA’s highest scoring restaurant with 284.76 points. Hosting and catering to over 1,600 guests each month, Barr Mansion is a picturesque site for weddings, luncheons, parties, and various events.  As the nation’s first and only Certified Organic events facility, Barr Mansion prides itself on being green. From simple things like using non-toxic cleaning chemicals, paints, and candles to the more complex such as diverting 97 percent of its waste, Barr Mansion is leading the way. Other unique eco-aspects include:

• Hemp and organic table linens
• Chairs made from eucalyptus
• Roof made from recycled concrete
• Geothermal heat
• Organic food grown on the property
• Serving grass fed beef
• Composting all food waste

GustOrganics, eco-friendly world foods at 519 Avenue of the Americas, NYC

Many of the GRA-certified restaurants attest to the money savings that accompanied their green transformation. At GustOrganics Restaurant & Bar in New York City, owner Alberto Gonzales, notes that he has saved $1,300 a year by foregoing paper towels in favor of an energy efficient hand dryer in the restroom. GustOrganics, which serves everything from granola and fruit to organic bar drinks and Buenos Aires steak,  also has received much media attention as the first certified organic food restaurant in NYC.

GRA understands that with each new year better environmental solutions become available and more plentiful. Because of this, certified restaurants must continually improve their sustainable practices.

“They [consumers] expect more and they want to know that the restaurant can truly back up their green claims. Being certified through a 20-year-old national non-profit with transparent standards is the way to do that,” said Oteri.

So while a restaurant does not need to have the GRA seal to be taking some green actions, the certification is verification that the facility is among the vanguard of eco-friendly eating establishments. Use the Dine Green online tool to find a GRA-certified restaurant near you.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

A new organization of hundreds of American businesses is demanding comprehensive action by Congress on federal clean energy and climate legislation in the wake of the recent Copenhagen climate change summit.

In its first six weeks, the American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE) said it has grown from just 19 members to include over 800 businesses as of today. ABCE is a diverse coalition of businesses that support Congressional action to pass clean energy and climate legislation that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The organization is largely made up of small Main Street businesses, clean tech and green businesses, but it also includes major names such as Gap Inc, DB Climate Change Advisors (Deutsche Bank Group), and power companies FPL Group and New York Power Authority.

“The rapid increase in business flocking to ABCE sends a strong signal to Congress of the strong support for meaningful and effective legislation that will drive clean technology innovation, create jobs, and address the threat of global climate change,” ABCE spokesperson Christopher Van Atten said in a statement. “With all of the business interest in the proceedings at Copenhagen and the increasing focus on climate change, we expect to see an additional surge in our membership over the holiday period and into January. Frankly, we have been overwhelmed by the interest in the American Businesses for Clean Energy.”

Among the new members is Serious Materials, Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company that manufactures energy-efficient building materials. The company’s CEO was named “Entrepreneur of the Year for 2009″ by Inc. magazine. Other new members include: The Saunders Hotel Group, a Boston-based hotel management firm with properties throughout the Northeast; and Recycled Energy Development, a Westmont, Ill.-based developer of industrial cogeneration projects.

“The Saunders Hotel Group is proud to be a member of ABCE as we celebrate our 20th year since pioneering urban ecotourism,” Tedd Saunders, chief sustainability officer of The Saunders Hotel Group and president of EcoLogical Solutions Inc., said in a statement. “We are one of the many hundreds of mainstream companies actively sending a message to Congress that American businesses are eager for strong federal climate policy that will create good jobs and strengthen our economy while avoiding the worst consequences of the looming climate crisis. Putting a price on carbon will finally send a clear signal to businesses and industry to invest in a more sustainable future for the benefit of our citizens and economy.”

A full list of member companies is available at the American Businesses for Clean Energy web site.

As international climate treaty negotiations continue in Copenhagen amid debate over the potential economic impact of new standards, a new report shows that the costs for small business operating under California’s landmark climate law (AB 32) can be measured in pennies.

Border Gill in Santa Monica

Conducted by leading economists and released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the report found that AB 32 policies will only increase the percent of small business revenue spent on energy by only 0.3 percentage points–from 1.4 to 1.7 percent–in 2020. In a case study of one small business — Border Grill restaurant — the report fond AB 32 will cost diners 3 cents extra per $20 meal in 2020.

The peer reviewed analysis, The Economic Impact of AB 32 on California Small Businesses, used data on the cost characteristics of small businesses to estimate the economic impacts of AB 32 and was commissioned by UCS and conducted by The Brattle Group, an international economic consulting firm.

“Our report finds that the incremental cost impact of AB 32 on the average California small business will be relatively small and definitely manageable,” Jurgen Weiss of The Brattle Group and co-author of the report, said in a statement. “The AB 32 cost impact pales in comparison to the effect of inflation over ten years, and falls well within the range of historic cost variation most small businesses face everyday regardless of climate policy.”

The Brattle Group projected the likely changes in electricity, natural gas, and gasoline prices due to the major AB 32 policies: cap and trade (which puts a price on carbon), a 33 percent renewable energy standard, increased energy efficiency measures, and a low-carbon fuel standard.

Others report highlights included:

• Most small businesses will not be directly regulated under AB 32, therefore AB 32 policies will only impact them indirectly to the extent that these policies cause energy prices for electricity, natural gas and transportation to change.
• The average small business spends less than 1.5 percent of revenues on energy-related costs. So any increase in the price of energy will have a modest financial impact.
• Increases projected in electricity, gas and transportation fuel costs due to AB 32 are lower than recent increases in the same rates caused by factors wholly unrelated to environmental regulations
• Increased costs of other products used by small business — such as food, supplies and services — that result from higher energy prices also will have only a modest impact on small business.

The report, released last week, includes a case study of Border Grill, a Santa Monica-based Mexican restaurant. The report’s authors said restaurants are more energy intensive than the average small business and represent the largest share of employment in any small business category – 10 percent of total statewide employment. After auditing five years of the restaurant’s electricity and gas bills, The Brattle Group developed a 10-year business projection based on historical data, and used this projection, along with macro-economic assessment of change in energy prices, to develop the case study results.

According to the report, in 2020, Border Grill will be spending 2 percent of its revenue on energy. By investing in a robust set of efficient appliances, vehicles, and other equipment, the restaurant will be able to use even less energy and improve its productivity and competitiveness.

Border Grill is known for serving only sustainable seafood, as part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program. It also uses organic long-grain rice, beans, and coffee, and developed a program called “Good for the Planet, Good for You,” that gives guests the opportunity to choose dishes made with at least 80 percent plant-based ingredients.

LG Electronics USA,  a leading provider of flat-panel HDTVs to the lodging industry, said it will partner with Waste Management Inc. on the first recycling program for hotel operators to responsibly dispose of outdated television sets and computer monitors.

In 2010 alone, hundreds of hotels are expected to upgrade thousands of rooms with energy-efficient flat-panel digital TVs, which will displace older analog picture tube TVs. To support this growing trend, LG Electronics said it will offer environmentally conscious hotel, motel and resort operators a convenient, cost-effective opportunity for recycling the obsolete hotel TVs.

Under this new program planned for launch in 2010, LG Electronics would facilitate the recycling process through Waste Management’s subsidiary WM Recycle America LLC. In addition to offering the TV and monitor-recycling program, LG would assist hoteliers in working with WM to recycle the packaging from any new LG flat-panel HDTVs and computer monitors being installed in their properties.

The executive director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling, Jason Linnell, called the program “a significant new development” in the e-waste arena. “Most voluntary and state-mandated efforts across the country have been focused on consumer recycling efforts,” he said in a statement. “So, when you think of the millions of analog TVs being replaced in hotels across the country, this approach is particularly noteworthy. We urge hotel operators to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities.”

The program will leverage Waste Management’s national network of over 200 recycling centers throughout the United States. The hotel TVs and computer monitors collected under this program will be processed in an environmentally responsible manner at one of four regionally designated Waste Management recycling facilities that are ISO 14001 and 9001 certified to protect the local environment in those communities along with the people handling this waste.

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.

Hotel Triton Lobby (Photo: Markham Johnson)

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.

Non-toxic products, green cleaners, low VOC paints, low-flow faucets – all these turned up in Kimpton Hotels while other hotels were still on the highway of high-consumption. In addition, Kimpton has restored several historic buildings, supporting pedestrian-friendly urban areas. Stay at a Kimpton and you may find yourself ensconced on an eco-friendly mattress, drinking organic coffee and munching on a Clif bar.

Still, as the Kimpton chain grew greener, it had to figure out how to roll out the plan to all of its properties, including those outside of the Bay Area where environmental practices were not as well understood.

By 2005, the luxury hotel group had decided to standardize its green practices, requiring all Kimptons to adhere to an “Earth Care” program. But it didn’t want to impose a rigid top-down program. The solution: Kimpton named “eco-champions” at each of its hotels and encouraged them to form green teams and let ideas bubble up.

“You’ve got to get people on the front lines, who are doing the work, whose job you’re changing, a voice…and they’re right there, they see where the waste is,” said Niki Leondakis , chief operation officer for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants.

The Kimpton leadership, which currently oversees 48 hotels in cities from New England to California, learned the importance of buy-in earlier. In 2003, when Kimpton decided guests could opt out of having their sheets and towels washed every day, management was surprised that many housekeepers were reluctant to make the change. “The housekeepers couldn’t grasp the idea that they were doing a good job by not changing the towels. They needed training that if the towels were on towel bar, the guest wanted to save water and soap…and it was OK,” Leondakis said.

Today, the staff is more likely to get it, though the hospitality group still treads carefully in determining what clients will tolerate – and remain satisfied customers. That has left several green issues still on the table, such as whether a hotel can reduce plastic water bottles when guests on-the-go seem to expect that perk, or whether guests will accept room amenities in bulk dispensers (foregoing that little souvenir of the trip).

“We were initially, like, ‘We’re going to get rid of bottled water entirely.’ And we’d offer filtered tap water in reusable containers both in the restaurants, and our vision was to create a reusable container almost like a flask that people paid a nominal fee for and then they’d refill it at a water cooler. But the consumer does not seem to be ready for that,” Leondakis said.

Look for the green teams and “eco-champions” to find a solution. So far, the local crews are forging viable new ways on various fronts.

In DC, Chef Robert Weland at the Post Modern Barasserie in D.C. was the driving force behind an herb garden. He not only uses it in his dishes, but gives tours.

In Portland, at the Hotel Monaco, someone decided the facility could get along without those paper-wasting phone books. Now all Kimptons get by without guest room phone books.

Hotel Monaco Chicago (Photo: David Phelps)

In Chicago, the cities’ three Kimpton Hotels, the Monaco, Burnham and Allegro became leaders in the Green Seal green cleaner certification program, prompted by a mayor’s green initiative. Now the three are among just 50 Green Seal certified hotels nationwide.

The 20-year-old program requires the use of green cleaners, energy efficiency and recycling. (For details, see this listing.)

Using green cleaners prevents water pollution, provides for healthier interior air and curbs carbon emissions. The typical silver-ranked Green Seal hotel saves 400 tons of CO2 emissions every year, said Charlotte Teyraud, a spokeswoman for the non-profit Green Seal.

The Chicago hotels also  advocated for a commercial recycling program, that was eventually put into place with the help of city hall, says Nabil Moubayed, manager of the 192-room Hotel Monaco Chicago along the city’s Magnificent Mile:

Now in the “5^th phase” of instituting the Kimpton “Earth Care” program, Moubayed says the Hotel Monaco has found that going green is working on many levels:

• About 60-70 percent of the hotel’s customers use the opt-out linen/towel program, saving money and water.

• The Green Seal-approved cleaners, which the hotel buys in bulk, concentrated form, are saving the hotel about $25,000 a year. The non-toxic cleaners are healthier for staff and guests and biodegradable. (As for that outdated worry about green cleaners not working – Moubayad says surveys burst that myth. “When we look at guest comments. We have the highest score in the company for clean bathrooms and guest rooms.”)

• The hotel recycles about half of its trash, which also saves money because sending out the garbage costs more in trash fees than sending out recyclables, even in this down-market for recyclable material.

Hotel Monaco room overlooking Chicago River

Green ways are catching on among staff, he says. When Monaco’s valet crew discovered that the dry cleaners they were using was discarding hangers after one use, they were aghast. They went to work to find a solution. Now the hangers are reused.

Guests, too, are contracting the green bug. While they remain a diverse group that’s not easily gauged, Moubayed says surveys show that the majority of people stay at Kimpton because of the hotels’ greener rep.

“We’ve seen a pretty high percentage of guests choosing use because we have a strong Green Care program.” he  said. “We don’t want them to feel like everything we doing is in their face. The (guest room) recycling bin for instance is bronze not bright blue. And the low flow shower heads, we don’t’ necessarily want them to notice that, but it  is helping the environment.”

Moubayad had no special sustainability training before coming to the Hotel Monaco, but he has built on what he has learned through Kimpton.

“I found I had a passion for it,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do., not just from the consumer point of view, but as a human, for the future generations. It’s the right thing to do.”

(Another key way that hotels across the US are greening their profile is by building, retrofitting or tailoring operations to meet standards set by the US Green Building Council. For more on these green hotels, see our recent story: A green wave coming, hundreds of hotels finalizing their LEED certification.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in conjunction with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and The Hospitality Industry Network (NEWH) asked interior designers to submit their plans for an eco-friendly guest room in their first-ever Sustainable Suite Design Competition.

(Photo: USGBC)

With the hospitality industry being a large consumer of water and energy use, this competition was aimed to inspire green design throughout the industry.

“The purpose of the competition was to bring greater awareness about green building to the hospitality industry. Hotels are 24-hour a day businesses, and are among the highest consumers of water, energy and other natural resources. By joining with ASID and NEWH, hopefully the hospitality industry will hear the call and bring hotels – newly built and existing – to a higher level of performance by incorporating sustainability into their practices,” said Marie Coleman, a spokeswoman for the USGBC.

More than 65 sustainable designs were submitted. Each one uniquely highlighted the importance of different environmental aspects, exhibiting a promising future for greener design among newly built and existing hotels.

Designs were judged on three categories:

• Design Elements: water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality
• Education: guest room attributes and guest practices
• Overall Design: integrated design approach, originality and innovation, general aesthetic and financial feasibility

WATG, a destination design firm, submitted the winning design in conjunction with IDEO. Their suite, Haptik, a Greek term meaning to experience interactions based on sense of touch, created a combination of sustainability and luxury. Haptik will be featured at the 2010 Hospitality Design Expo & Conference in Las Vegas this May.
Among the innovative winning design were many eco-features such as:

• An “all-off ” switch to ensure lights are automatically turned-off based on passive infrared sensors (PIS)
• room conditioning equipped by a four-pipe horizontal fan-coil system
• pressure-lite technology for the toilets
• a  Trombe wall in the shower that captures solar heat to warm the shower water
• a low flow shower head
• a graywater irrigation system that filters and recycles shower water to outdoor gardens and landscaping
• recycling bins in the room

“It was great to see the level of interest in the competition – not just in the number of submissions we received, but the level of design and innovation these firms and young professionals put into their submissions,” Coleman said.

“Designers are an important part of making green technologies sophisticated and accessible to anyone working in or staying at a hotel, showing that environmental responsibility can be easily attained.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

One could count a thousand ways humans have soiled the planet, from shearing off mountaintops to mine coal to dredging the bottom of the ocean with heavy, coral-destroying equipment.

Congress zeroed in on one needless wave of destruction this past week, introducing legislation in both houses to stop cruise ships from releasing untreated sewage into the ocean.

The Senate’s Clean Cruise Ship Act, proposed by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), would extend the Clean Water Act to regulate the millions of gallons of waste water from cruise ships. The net effect would be a ban on the release of raw, untreated sewage.

In the House, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) introduced nearly identical legislation.

In the US, nearly 10 million people vacation aboard cruise liners that dump sewage into the ocean.

According to a news release from Durbin’s office, a single cruise ship can release more than 200,000 gallons of human sewage, one million gallons of gray water from kitchens and bathrooms and 10,000 gallons of sewage sludge each week.

Not to mention the small, but significant disgorging of hazardous waste and oily bilge. (Can we pause here for a collective “ick”?!)

Currently, this waste is regulated in some coastal regions, but unevenly so. Durbin’s Clean Cruise Ship Act would amend the Clean Water Act to:

• Place cruise ships under the EPA guidelines for pollution discharges (much as industries are).

• Prohibit the discharge of sewage, graywater and bilge water within 12 miles of shore

• Require state-of-the-art treatment of waste water that is to be released outside the 12 mile perimeter – Prohibit any dumping of sewage sludge, incinerator ash and hazardous waste in US waters

• Set up inspection and onboard observation to monitor the program.Durbin’s bill also would strengthen discharge requirements for cruise ships operating in the Great Lakes, holding them to the same 12 mile prohibition zone and requiring them to update their technology to treat sewage and gray water before it is discharged into the lakes.

Durbin’s office reports that several environmental groups support his bill, including: Friends of the Earth; Earthjustice; Oceana; Surfrider; Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters; and Northwest Environmental Advocates.

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.”

AAA said it will not be involved in the evaluation of any property’s environmental practices, but will provide the information from recognized organizations as a service to members. Additional information and a list of recognized certification programs are accessible at AAA.com/eco.

North America’s largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA has more than 51 million members.

The Bluebell Garden at the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, NC. (Photo: Proximity Hotel)

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 angling 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.

Green Seal, which certifies hotels that use non-toxic cleaners, will continue to push its version of green. Energy Star credentials green hotels, just as it does other commercial buildings. And finally, you’ll be seeing plaques about the US Green Building Council’s LEED program, the respected and most all-encompassing designation for hotel properties. There are four levels — certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum — that can be applied to  newly built or retrofitted hotels.

And as in the army, the stripes and colors mean something. A “certified” LEED hotel may not be doing much more than making sensible changes to reduce energy consumption, whereas a gold-rated operation could be a real striver in the green space.

Now add one more layer. The USGBC offers another rating, for operations. It’s called the Existing Building (EB) certification, and only five hotel properties currently carry that distinction, compared with the 700-plus that already have or are about to receive LEED certification for their structure. Getting EB qualified is about daily green actions, like sending out your potato peelings to be composted and using soaps that don’t kill fish when they’re flushed out into the world. Considering that hotel operations consume a lot of resources and generate considerable waste (far more than residences or offices), this lesser known operations certification,  seems like more than a detail. If the green trend holds, expect to see hotels signing up for this designation as well.

A Platinum Night’s Sleep

As this new green stew simmers, hotel operators find themselves in the unusual position of having to adjust their approach to guests. While they want to promise great comforts, new green standards mean it won’t be coddling as usual. Guests will be asked, either directly or through the power of suggestion, to act responsibly by putting recyclables in the nice new bins in their room, or drinking the perfectly fine filtered water from their faucet instead of indulging in the bottled variety.

Yes, it will be a new day at the Days Inn, or anywhere else changes are being made. At the same time, hotels will want to keep guests comfortable, because, well, that’s their job.

To see the shape of things to come, we took a look at the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, N.C., the only platinum-rated hotel in the United States.

Dennis Quaintance, Chief Design Officer of Proximity Hotel and President of Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants & Hotels, with the 100 solar panels atop the hotel. (Photo: Proximity Hotel)

Stroll into the Proximity, and you’ll be drenched in sunlight, but invisibly enveloped by several state-of-the-art energy innovations that combine to make the hotel use 40 percent less electricity than a comparable building. Solar rooftop panels heat the hotel’s water, geothermal energy is used for the kitchen refrigerators, large windows reduce the need for indoor lights and  offer views of the outdoors while also admitting fresh air. A special “energy recovery” system uses exhausted cool air to assist the AC. Even the elevators run on a new energy-conserving program that recaptures energy generated.

The hotel used recycled materials in the foundation, drywall and steel staircase. Guest room shelving was made with a 100 percent recycled, formaldehyde-free  particle board (SkyBlend). Water use was reduced with high-efficiency Kohler plumbing that saved 2 million gallons of water in the first year. A nearby stream was restored with the use of native plantings and erosion control techniques. Some of the furniture is so local, it was made on site, and the art, by artist-in-residence Chip Holton, came from across the street.

When the hotel was built in 2007, it sent relatively little construction waste to the landfill – 87 percent of the waste was recycled.

All of this earned the Proximity LEED points, and for co-owners Dennis Quaintance, Nancy King Quaintance and Mike Weaver, it became a challenge to leap the highest bar. They wanted to win a platinum rating, not just because they could, but because they believe in preserving the world for future generations. For husband-and-wife Quaintances, it meant considering the legacy they’d leave to their children, and beyond. Would their descendants look back and know they’d done their best for the environment?