Home Personnel Profile As Xanterra’s Sustainability Ambassador, Catherine Greener Helps Soften Company’s Footprint

As Xanterra’s Sustainability Ambassador, Catherine Greener Helps Soften Company’s Footprint

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Name: Catherine Greener
Title: Vice President of Sustainability
Organization: Xanterra Parks & Resorts
Years with Organization: One and one-half
Primary responsibilities: “Leading sustainability development across all resorts, setting policy and being a sustainability ambassador for Xanterra.”
Organization’s most significant sustainability-related accomplishment: “The engagement of our people around our robust environmental management system.”
Organization’s most significant sustainability-related challenge: “Engaging our guests in this journey in a way that is ‘on brand’—providing legendary hospitality with a softer footprint. Being stewards of the beautiful places guests are visiting. Inviting them along our stewardship journey.”

DENVER—When Chris Lane, Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, announced he was leaving his position in 2012, Xanterra got to work to hire someone with similar leadership skills and experience leading complex sustainability projects. In Catherine Greener, now Vice President of Sustainability for Xanterra, they found that person. She brought more than 25 years of experience in the implementation of sustainability, lean manufacturing, and quality management systems to Xanterra.

Leading sustainability development at Xanterra, the largest national and state park concessioner in the United States, is a huge challenge. The company’s portfolio has been growing as of late and it operates not only park facilities but also Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., Windstar Cruises, and VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations. Fortunately for Greener she has the support of another full-time Director of Sustainability, individuals assigned to sustainability initiatives at each property, as well as green teams.

When asked what her typical day is like, she said no two days are the same. “There is no such thing as typical,” she says. “Tasks can range from looking at a new technology to explaining Scope 3 emissions to settling a water crisis. Responding to guests is also something I do. I try to respond to their queries with handwritten letters.”

Innovator in Impact Measurement

Xanterra is known as in innovator in hospitality with Ecologix, its environmental management program. The company uses its own highly refined performance metrics model—called Ecometrix—to define resource consumption on annual per-room night and per-dollar revenue bases. Ecometrix defines annual totals of resource consumption, allowing Xanterra to focus on environmental goals that are measurable to a high level of accuracy. Ecometrix also provides measures for waste diversion, program compliance, and many other important statistics of performance.

Greener says Xanterra is currently working to improve the accuracy of the data it collects within Ecometrix. That data is used to help Greener and Xanterra’s executive team set achievable environmental performance goals. In its 2011 Sustainability Report, Xanterra reported on the progress toward its 2015 goals for achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, increasing usage of renewable energy, and diverting waste from landfill. It also reported on progress in other areas such as sustainable cuisine purchases. As of 2009, Xanterra had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent (2000 baseline)—well on its way to reducing emissions by its goal of 30 percent by 2015. Xanterra uses what it calls its Ecometabolism metric to account for increases or decreases in its operational size when measuring the impact of the assets it manages.

Greener says Xanterra is in the process of re-setting its environmental impact goals. “We are working with the World Wildlife Fund to set 2020 goals,” she says.

She adds that Xanterra is also in the process of producing a new sustainability report. “We are moving to a new way of reporting,” Greener says, adding that each property will eventually have its own online sustainability page with stories describing on-property initiatives.

‘Operation Shrively Apples’

The list of Xanterra’s environment-related accomplishments is long. When asked to cite a couple of recent ones, Greener mentioned an effort at Grand Canyon called “Operation Shrively Apples” which involves getting food waste (apples that have shriveled) to the park’s mules. “In less than a year, 5,500 pounds of apples have been diverted so far,” she says. She also mentioned a Zion Lodge project that involved developing a water-cooled system for walk-in refrigeration units at the property’s Red Rock Grill kitchen. It resulted in the saving of approximately 1 million gallons of water annually and earned a Top Product of the Year Award in the Environmental Leader Product & Project Awards.

With any green building project at Xanterra properties, Greener says she is involved a lot. “We only have a few projects currently that involve LEED,” she says. “Yellowstone will have a lot of LEED certification projects coming online. Even if we do not certify a project, Xanterra has its own guidelines for environmental design and construction. We follow a LEED Silver standard. We use LEED as a tool even if we are not certifying to it.”

Prior to joining Xanterra, Greener’s experience included V.P. of Sustainability Consulting at Saatchi & Saatchi S, Team Leader Commercial and Industrial Team, Rocky Mountain Institute and Director of Quality and Customer Focus for ABB Flexible Automation. She is regularly invited to speak on various sustainability topics including strategy, employee engagement and integrating sustainability into marketing messages. Greener holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and MBA from the University of Michigan.

Go to Xanterra Parks & Resorts.

Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

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