When your bedding and towels have reached the end of their life, what do you do with them? Send them to the landfill? Donate them? If they were made with polyester or nylon, they would have shed plastic microfibers into the environment throughout their lifetime and will continue to do so in a landfill. Certainly, the life of all bedding and towels cannot be extended. I have written about Pürlin’s Zero Laundry—Zero Waste Linens before. These linens are recycled after each use. No guest uses the same linen. At HD Expo in May I learned about CiCLO™, a textile additive...

I just returned from The Hospitality Show in Las Vegas this past week. An AHLA/Questex conference and trade show, the event drew more than 3,500 attendees and 300 vendors. The event will return next year but in San Antonio in October. At least 70 to 80 of the vendors fell directly into the sustainability space—impressive to me and proof of how far our industry has come in recent years. Sustainability was also a frequent topic in the conference sessions. The biggest news coming out of the conference was announced during a session entitled, “The Hospitality Industry v. Human Trafficking: Marriott...

We are all aware of our industry’s staffing shortage and we are also aware of the refugee crisis prompted by conflicts around the world. This week both Marriott & Hilton announced they would step up their efforts to assist refugees by hiring them. Marriott & Hilton are among numerous other industry companies and organizations that have assisted refugees in recent years. Aiding those fleeing their own countries is critical currently. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are currently more than 27 million refugees worldwide. Nearly 8 million from Ukraine have been recorded in neighboring countries and...

If you are looking for more good reasons to eliminate plastic beverage bottles, be sure to read Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle. It reveals the health, environmental, and climate threats caused throughout the lifecycle of plastic beverage bottles (made from polyethylene terephthalate or PET)—from the hazardous air emissions released in the petrochemical manufacturing process to the cancer-causing toxic chemicals leaked in the consumption and final waste stages. Making PET requires hundreds of chemicals, including ethylene oxide (EtO), the most potent cancer-causing chemical emitted by chemical manufacturers, and antimony. Antimony is one of at least 150 chemicals that can escape from...

This month has two key industry shows still to come—The Hospitality Show at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas from June 27 to 29 and HITEC at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from June 26 to 29. When The Hospitality Show was announced, the folks behind HITEC were not happy about the Show being scheduled concurrent to their event. It has created a situation where both hoteliers and suppliers have had to either pick and choose or send representatives to both events. Of course I look at every event through a sustainability lens and The Hospitality Show and HITEC both deliver...

When Choice Hotels International released its 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report two months ago, it caught the eye of many of you. (See article.) What Choice Hotels does in the ESG arena should catch your attention; the company has more than 7,400 hotels, representing over 625,000 rooms, in 45 countries and territories. That is quite an environmental impact and a huge opportunity to reduce resource consumption and waste. Following the release of its report, I reached out to Choice Hotels and interviewed Megan Brumagim, Vice President, Sustainability for Choice Hotels. Be sure to read her responses to my...

AHLA last conducted The Lodging Survey with STR in 2018. It provided valuable information on numerous trends in lodging, including ones falling under Sustainability. AHLA and STR no longer conduct that survey. A very valuable replacement to that survey is the 2022 Green Lodging Trends U.S. Market Report. It is based on U.S.-specific data gathered for the 2022 edition of the global Green Lodging Trends Report (GLTR). The newly available U.S. report from AHLA—representing its Responsible Stay program—is based on data from 17,000 U.S. hotels. There were two data collection methods: direct participation by responding to the GLTR survey on...

If their goals are reached, LNG Electric along with partner MD7 will give the U.S. hotel industry a significant boost in electric vehicle charging presence in the coming years. According to a press release issued this past week, LNG Electric and design firm MD7 will place Level 2 and Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) EV charging stations at over 13,000 hotels in the next five to six years. The planned installations will also make LNG Electric one of the top three owner-operators of EV charging stations in the U.S. Based on the most recent data I have; I estimate at...

It was just two days before Earth Day that Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed his state’s Plastics Reduction Bill. It requires water bottle filling stations in new buildings and eliminates single-use plastics for personal care products in hotels. “In any construction subject to the requirements of this chapter in which a drinking fountain is required under the international building code as amended and adopted by the building code council, the rules adopted by the building code council must also require the provision of a bottle filling station, or a combined bottle filling station and drinking fountain for each drinking fountain...

I have green design on the mind this week for two good reasons. First, I will be attending the HD Expo + Conference in Las Vegas (May 2-4). I wrote about the event in a previous column that highlighted some of the products that will be featured and the conference sessions that will address sustainability and wellness in one form or another. Be sure to watch for coverage of this event that will feature more than 600 suppliers in more than 25 product categories. HD Expo is truly one of the best marketplaces on the planet for products and...