Travelers and workers expect a comfortable and healthy hotel environment to work, relax and sleep in. Ensuring good indoor air quality (IAQ) while maintaining building comfort is an essential part of providing a healthy hotel environment. The concentrations of some pollutants in indoor air are often 2 to 5 times higher than typical outdoor concentrations. Exposure to indoor air pollution can cause symptoms like headaches, poor concentration, and irritation to the eyes, nose, or throat. Poor IAQ is a particular concern for those affected by asthma and allergies, for whom certain pollutants can trigger a range of symptoms, from sneezing...

PLAINFIELD, ILL.—Was your hotel built before 1993? If so, chances are you’re losing money each time a guest flushes one of the hotel’s toilets. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that hotels use about 15 percent of the total water consumed by commercial and institutional facilities in the United States. Actual usage varies by guest, of course, but most studies indicate hotels use between 100 to 200 gallons of fresh water per occupied guestroom per day. Water in the United States ranges from three to five dollars per 1,000 gallons. Simple math shows how efforts to reduce water use can potentially lower hotel operating...

Electric vehicles are taking over the road. More than 1 million battery powered electric vehicles have been sold in the United States since 2010, but they remain underserved with only 99,325 public charging ports available at 41,145 stations across the country. Very few businesses have the capability to fill this need the way hotels can. Today, every major carmaker already offers EVs or plans to introduce them and with electric cars forecasted to surge to 10 percent of the United States’ new car market by 2025, there is no better opportunity than right now for hotels to have a leg up on...

From Walgreens to Target to the doctor’s office…It is safe to say that hemp has made a comeback here in the United States. What most people don’t know is that hemp is far more than your run of a mill CBD concoction. It’s food, fiber, fuel and more. For us here at Anact, we believe that hemp is the future of sustainable textiles due to its performance and sustainable attributes. Here’s why we are excited for the hospitality industry to pave the way in re-introducing this powerful textile. It’s hard to find a negative when it comes to hemp and...

Sustainability at work, in life, and during play has become the front-and-center topic for so many Americans this last couple of years. With climate change’s extreme weather events—wildfires in the West, floods in the Midwest, and devastating hurricanes in the South and East—jostling us out of our brief summer reverie, and the unsettling prospect of braving a second Fall and Winter with the Delta variant of COVID lurking invisibly among us, individuals are rightly concerned and motivated to embrace safe and sustainable practices in their lives. A 2020 study by the consulting firm Kearney, proves out these two motivating factors...

In 2018, Media Matters, a watchdog group, reported that over a two-week period from late June (2018) to July (2018), ABC, CBS, and NBC, the three major networks in the U.S., aired a combined 127 segments that discussed the heat wave then impacting much of the country. However, only one, CBS This Morning, mentioned two words that appear to get some people very charged up, and those two words are “climate change.” There’s more to it than just the fact that some people get “charged up” when the words climate change are spoken on the air. According to Chris Hayes,...

The world’s environment is affected primarily by real estate, transportation, and manufacturing. Due to the influence that these industries have on each other, it is clear that designing and operating sustainable buildings have a tremendous impact on the environment. Some of the concerns addressed by sustainability practices include inefficient site planning; lack of smart growth; waste of water, electricity, and energy; overconsumption and excessive waste; not using sustainable materials; minimizing transportation; the lack of healthy indoor air quality; increased pollution; depletion of the ozone layer; and climate change. Challenges & Misconceptions The hospitality industry was slow to adopt sustainable operations and design because...

Monsoon season excites many residents and tourists during the summer, but hotel operators and building owners must recognize that monsoon season can pose serious threats to people and property. This year, unpredictable and intense monsoons have been sweeping the southwestern United States, increasing the amount of dust and debris particles in the air which can decrease the performance and efficiency of air conditioning units. Not only does this reduce the level of comfort in the building, but it also impacts the quality of the indoor air your employees and guests breathe. It’s no surprise your building’s commercial HVAC unit is...

Covid-19 gave literal pause to the travel industry in a way we’ve never experienced. The opportunity to reinvent our craft for the better has not been lost—especially with an eye to improving our relationship with the natural environment. We’ve seen improvements in efficiency, brand new eco-friendly service options, and reinvented business features that touch every part of the guest experience (even when that means shifting to low or no touch services). As travelers re-emerge, environmentally conscious features just so happen to be exactly what they seek. According to Booking.com’s recently released 2021 sustainability report, guests are more motivated than ever...

As a double immigrant raised in Toronto, having spent a decade in New York and eventually starting a lifestyle hotel brand in Shanghai, I enjoyed the benefit of living in and working among the most diverse and multicultural places on earth. I have also worked for diversity award winning corporations such as Deloitte, Accenture, and Hilton to name a few. Research confirms that discrimination is best understood, not by classroom lectures or corporate training, but by those who have experienced it firsthand. In 2007, when I was SVP of Corporate Development at Hilton, I was presenting to the Board of...