Seems like everywhere I turned this past week I saw something about the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. First, I posted an article about Concord Hospitality’s commitment to LEED. Fourteen of its hotels are LEED certified and there are 15 more in the pipeline that will also obtain LEED certification. All new Concord Hospitality construction projects are designed, constructed, operated and maintained to meet LEED guidelines. Second, I posted an article about the 1 Hotel South Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. and its announcement that it had obtained LEED Silver. Finally, I posted a press release from the USGBC regarding the top 10 states for LEED green building based on square feet of certified space per resident. (The top 10, in order beginning with the greatest representation: Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, New York, California, Nevada, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Texas.)
LEED certainly has become one of the most sought after certifications not only in our industry but all industries. USGBC’s project database currently includes more than 100,000 projects. What is so appealing to Concord Hospitality about it? According to Carl Hren, Vice President of Architecture & Construction for the Raleigh, N.C.-based company, its LEED certified hotels run 30 to 40 percent more efficient than comparable properties. They are less expensive to operate and worth more as an asset as well.
What Concord Hospitality has found is that the first (Certified) or second level (Silver) of LEED certification is sufficient. Reaching Gold or Platinum is not necessary. Hren says properties at Certified and Silver levels are about as efficient as they can be. “We have yet to come across a group that has stayed away because of a hotel not being LEED Gold or higher,” Hren told me.
A Worthwhile Path to Follow
I recently interviewed an executive at a leading gaming company and he told me that his company sees the LEED guidelines as a worthwhile path to follow, even if certification is not pursued. LEED v4 addresses key areas ranging from energy, water and waste to materials, location and transportation, sustainable sites, and regional impacts. Different LEED certifications are available to hospitality projects and points are awarded based on accomplishments in the key areas.
I recommend taking a “test drive” through the USGBC project database. You can search through all projects to identify hotel projects. For example, I did a search on “hotel” and it produced 622 results. When I narrowed the search to the “United States,” the search results showed 275 hotel projects. Keep in mind the results were only for those projects with the word “hotel” in the name. A search on the word “inn” produced 186 results. If you click on a hotel result you will find some interesting information about that particular hotel project: an overview, LEED scorecard, and stories about the project. Not all of the projects have the three categories populated. For benchmarking, or even leads if you happen to be a supplier, the project database is a great source to check out.
Next year the USGBC will turn 25 years old. It is great to see the organization having such a sizeable impact on how hotels are built or renovated today.
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