I recently came across a group of hotels that are a perfect fit for Green Lodging News: Conscious Hotels. In case you are not familiar with the properties, there are three located in Amsterdam and one more in The Netherlands slated to open in 2018. Details can be found on the company’s website but here is how the hotels are described: “Conscious Hotels strive to be as green, sustainable and eco-friendly as possible. But they’re more hip than hippy. And by hip we don’t mean our staff are too cool to answer the phone. You might not even notice...

ELKHART, IND.—Dometic recently attended the Boutique Design Show in New York City and displayed the new NTE minibars for the first time in the United States. Dometic’s Eco Class Minibars have a compact design, and are now available in three types of cooling technologies: Compressor, Absorption, and the new Noiseless Thermoelectric (NTE). The NTE minibars use an energy efficient and silent thermoelectric cooling technology. Available in both a 30 and 40-liter capacity, they are designed to fit into new build projects as well as replace older generations of Dometic minibars within an existing hotel. The Dometic RH 40 NTE 40-Liter Class...

MIAMI—New ownership led by Gencom, a leading Miami-based international luxury hospitality and residential real estate investment and development firm, announced that Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the world’s leading luxury hospitality company, will assume management of a new collection of environmentally designed private villas and estate homes set to commence construction in February 2018. Construction completion is targeted for mid-Q4 2019. The exclusive enclave of 20 wholly owned properties will be known as Four Seasons Private Residences Prieta Bay at Peninsula Papagayo, situated on 17 acres of prime oceanfront real estate adjacent to the famed Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica. A...

MCLEAN, VA.—Hilton unveiled Connected Room, a first-of-its-kind, high-tech guestroom that enables guests to personalize and control every aspect of their stay from one central point—their mobile device. Currently in beta testing, Connected Room is live in one hotel, will deploy in coming weeks in several more, and will begin to scale rapidly to hotels across the United States in 2018. The Connected Room Experience Guests who stay at Connected Room-enabled properties will soon be able to use the Hilton Honors app to manage most things they would traditionally do manually in a room, from controlling the temperature and lighting to the...

TUSCALOOSA, ALA.—Hotel Indigo Tuscaloosa Downtown announced it recently received the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. This is the second hotel in Alabama to receive this certification. “We are honored to receive the LEED Silver certification for Hotel Indigo Tuscaloosa, and thankful that the U.S. Green Building Council recognizes our efforts in environmental protection, energy saving and the improvement of overall environmental quality,” said Judd Bobilin, of Chance Partners, LLC, the developer. “One of the key tenets of our company is to ‘Partner with the Community’ and we are excited to...

MUSKEGON, MICH.—EarthTronics, dedicated to developing innovative energy-efficient lighting products that provide a positive economic and environmental impact for its customers, combines energy-efficiency and aesthetics to introduce new architecturally designed square and round Mini Panel LEDs for interior and exterior commercial and residential surface-mount applications. “EarthTronics Mini Panel LEDS could be considered the first major change in flush-mount fixtures in the last 20 years,” said Matthew Wagner, Business Development Manager—LED Products. “This important fixture category has been lifted from being simple drum or cloud fluorescent interior fixtures to a contemporary architectural design that includes upgraded color characteristics, mounting options and wet...

MANCHESTER, N.H.—Xeros, the innovator of polymer cleaning technologies, announced a partnership with Consolidated International Corporation (CIC) Middle East to distribute and service its award-winning commercial laundry system in the UAE. The UAE has an exceptionally arid climate which receives less than four inches (100 mm) of rainfall a year. It is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world so the Xeros system with its dramatic reduction in water consumption is the perfect solution for hotels and commercial laundries in the region. Xeros recently showcased this system at popular exhibitions in the region—The Hotel Show Dubai and Gulf Laundrex. “CIC...

TUKWILA, WASH.—Located minutes from downtown Seattle and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Hotel Interurban is scheduled to open in spring 2018 as the newest hotel to enter the Seattle Southside market. Standing 19 stories high, the hotel will become the tallest building in the city and offer 185 guestrooms. Hotel Interurban will feature a two-story lobby boasting a custom glass art installation by local artist Bryan Rubino. It will offer over 15,000 square feet of meeting and event spaces, including the spectacular, 5,000-square-foot Rainier Room on the 19th floor, with its impressive views of Mt. Rainier. Guestrooms with a clean and...

ITHACA, N.Y.—For the fourth year in a row, Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) has released the latest benchmarks from an ongoing international sustainability data index for the global hotel industry. The report, “Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Index 2017: Energy, Water, and Carbon,” in collaboration with a dozen global hotel firms, analyzes data provided for nearly 13,000 properties. Increasing the data set by 80 percent and adding further segmentation from the previous index, the report is available from the CHR at no charge. The results are presented in the CHSB2017 Index with a range of benchmarks for energy consumption, water consumption,...

FALL RIVER, MASS.—Guardian Energy Management Solutions has completed an extensive lighting retrofit at the Whirlpool Corp. in Fall River, Mass. The 300,000-square foot state-of-the-art engineering and design center manufactures coin-operated industrial and specialty laundry equipment. In November of 2016, Guardian began the processes of auditing the facility and evaluating options for a lighting retrofit. The project was completed in September 2017 with outstanding results. Whirlpool had several challenges with the lighting on the plant floor. The light levels were inadequate for the tasks being performed, and portions of the floor were lit 24/7, regardless if they were occupied or not,...