World Water Day will take place this week (March 22). It is a United Nations program which reminds us of our responsibilities to protect this vital—and limited—resource. Hotels (and their guests) are high water consumers and it is time for them to get more proactive on their water stewardship. Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for everyone on the planet is one of the new SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) which governments and businesses are being asked to implement through combined action. With hotels often sited in exotic locations and water-scarce areas, it’s particularly important that hotel...

All our actions have a direct and indirect impact on climate change. Both consumers and businesses are actively trying to reduce their carbon footprint and one of the resulting benefits is reduced energy costs. Energy conservation is a win-win for everyone. Consumers are turning to technology to help monitor and save on utility savings. According to an article in Clean Technica, a new report by Navigant Research on the residential energy app market found that residential customers are more and more turning to energy-focused apps to make better use of their household energy usage. Apps provided by utilities, as well...

Yogurt containers have a label listing nutritional value, cars have a label listing miles per gallon, and refrigerators have a label listing their energy usage. Why not buildings? Fourteen cities have decided that they should by requiring commercial building owners to benchmark and disclose (B&D) their buildings’ energy usage. Benchmarking measures and compares energy efficiency between similar buildings using standardized metrics. Cities are banking that B&D will push the market toward increasingly efficient buildings by making a property’s utility data readily available to sellers, lessors, buyers, lenders and investors. The fourteen B&D programs throughout the United States share many of...

More than any other large properties, hotels and resorts can take advantage of the great benefits offered by LED lighting because these facilities have a fixed operating cost for heating/cooling and lighting in all their common areas. While the facility may not always be operating at full occupancy, all the lighting in their lobbies, hallways and other common areas are operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This makes these areas the best place to start either a retrofit or new installation project, as the Return on Investment (ROI) offers the quickest payback. An LED lamp or fixture...

When I established Impact Enterprises, Inc.’s environmental initiative in 2003, the word “environment” invoked a particular meaning; the physical world around us, nature. It did not include people. People, however, are central to our environment, and as such deserve protection and help as do our forests, rivers, lakes, and air. As Impact expanded its environmental initiative, it began to see the unfair challenges so many are confronted with on a daily basis. When possible, we as a community, as individuals, or as a company cannot in good faith turn a blind eye to these unfair challenges. In 2010, in collaboration...

As energy costs continue to rise and building codes become more rigorous, lodging facility professionals are searching for higher-performing building envelope assemblies. One such system, structural insulated panels (SIPS), helps reduce energy consumption up to 60 percent compared to other structural systems, while providing a host of other construction and operations benefits. An SIPs Primer SIPs are a prefabricated, engineered building system typically used for walls and roofs. They are composed of structural-grade wood panels such as oriented strand board (OSB) laminated to both sides of a rigid insulating foam core like expanded polystyrene (EPS). The system provides both structural strength...

A water consumption ratio is a metric by which we can begin to understand the actual consumption of water at recreational water attractions. As identified in part one of this series, the water consumption ratio is the number of gallons used daily as top off for a water attraction divided by the total initial fill gallons. The ratio represents the portion of the water actually consumed on a daily or monthly basis. This article profiles several outdoor waterpark attractions and analyzes their water consumption versus their water use. For purposes of our discussion, the initial fill gallons equate to the...

Buzz about the Internet of Things is everywhere, and many companies are trying to figure out how their devices can connect to the Internet in a smart way to bring new benefits to users. For instance, the Nest smart thermostat has become a poster child for the Internet of Things, spurring Google to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in early 2014. Although the consumer-focused Connected Home market may be the most talked about segment of the IoT, industrial applications, infrastructure management, energy management, environmental monitoring, and medical and healthcare systems are all looking to the Internet of Things to...

More than two decades ago, a company that manufactures circuit boards* for use in a variety of electrical products was facing a quandary. To clean their circuit boards, the company was using a solvent that contained ingredients determined to be harmful to the environment. As a result, they were given two years to phase out the use of these solvents. Company management decided they had four possible options to address this situation: 1.    They could simply not clean the circuit boards, a solution referred to as the “no-clean” process. 2.    They could turn to cleaning processes that use nonsolvent cleaning chemicals. 3.  ...

Being comfortable in a hotel is one of the top guest priorities, which can mean a chilled, air-conditioned room, steaming hot shower, or keeping the television on all night. However, guest comfort and satisfaction can sometimes come at a cost, equating to big energy footprints and hefty utility bills. On average, America’s 47,000 hotels spend $2,196 per available room each year on energy. It’s no surprise that energy represents the single fastest-growing operating cost in the lodging industry (according to the EPA). To track and manage that growing energy use number, hotels can benchmark their buildings, which can result...