Choice's Room to Be Green Could Use a Little More Teeth

Yesterday I posted an article on Green Lodging News that details the progress of Choice Hotels International's Room to Be Green Program. (Click here for article.) I commend Choice for the progress it has made in incentivizing its licensees to participate. Those franchisees who do partcipate in at least the three minimum programs--towel and/or linen re-use, use of compact fluorescents, and recycling--earn a green leaf icon on their property profiles on the Choice website. Also for those who participate in the minimum three programs, the programs become part of their quality assurance scoring process. In other words, they get scored not only for meeting the minimum franchise requirements but also for their extra green efforts as well. For those licensees interested in going beyond the minimum three programs, Choice provides a long list of ideas from which to choose.

So far, about 1,400 of Choice's approximately 6,100 properties are participating in Room to Be Green. A great start given the program's official launch a little more than two years ago.

What I am wondering, however, is if Choice is making it too easy to earn the green leaf icon. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association's 2010 Lodging Survey, about 90 percent of hotels in the United States already offer towel and linen re-use programs. They are now expected at hotels and are nothing out of the ordinary. Still important, yes, but very little investment is required. The second requirement--the use of compact fluorescents in all guestroom lamps and light fixtures--is important and I give Choice credit for making it a requirement, but it is a "low hanging fruit" type of investment that is very easy to accomplish. The third mandatory step--recycling--is especially too easy. Licensees are required to place at least one recycling receptacle in plain view for guest usage in the hotel common area. In other words, you can get buy with just one in the lobby but no others are required in back-of-house areas or guestrooms. This requirement is especially weak.

While I admire Choice's effort in creating Room to Be Green, I believe the company should make it more difficult to earn the little green leaf. Why not make the following also mandatory for the green leaf: some type of guestroom energy management system, high-efficiency toilets, the use of green cleaning products, and at least one set of recycling containers on every floor and in back-of-house/breakfast areas. Also make it a requirement that a property be 100 percent nonsmoking in order to be considered "green." Too often, indoor air quality is forgotten in "green" programs.

What Choice is doing is admirable but in the spectrum of "greenness," it is very "light green." Your thoughts?