ATLANTA—Honeywell, a global leader in connected buildings, announced the launch of its next generation thermostat for the hospitality industry. Honeywell’s INNCOM e7 Thermostat (e7) is the first enterprise grade environmental control and energy management solution that incorporates Amazon Alexa voice control for an effortless guest experience that includes room temperature, lighting, drapery and amenities services. With its modern design with easy-to-use controls, the e7 is based on a patent-pending Smart Wall Plate design that provides hotel staff with an easy and reliable back-up of the device configuration. This makes routine maintenance or replacement of the e7 energy management system...

ODESSA, FLA.—Hasek Communications, the Odessa, Fla.-based publisher of Green Lodging News, welcomes ENTERGIZE, LLC to its Green Product & Service Directory in the Energy Management/Guestroom category. With 16 years of guestroom energy management experience, ENTERGIZE offers the key card product that some customers have had installed for over a decade. ENTERGIZE also offers a PIR thermostat. ENTERGIZE recently upgraded the PIR product and it is now backed by a 60-month warranty. The high quality PIR thermostat qualifies for utility company incentives. This will ensure that the hotel maximizes its opportunity to save money on energy. The product is easy...

Commercial ice makers—the kind you see in hotel hallways, restaurants, and hospitals—can churn out anywhere from 50 pounds to 4,000 pounds of ice every day. They can produce regular cubes, ice nuggets for drink machines, or soft flakes used in supermarket displays, and they use a lot of water and energy to do it. As of last month, thanks to updated efficiency standards, almost every new ice maker sold in the United States will use 10 to 25 percent less energy. Sunday (January 28) was the day that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) efficiency standard for automatic commercial ice makers went into...

The momentum toward energy efficient buildings is transcending the harsh political climate in Washington, occurring primarily at the state and city levels in the United States, at the level of nonprofit organizations, and in other countries that are the fastest-growing source of climate pollution. Locally initiated policies for improved building efficiency have always driven the bulk of activity at the national level, both in the United States and in countries such as Russia. With the ratification of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which calls for the world to pursue action to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees, we see...

ODESSA, FLA.—Hasek Communications, the Odessa, Fla.-based publisher of Green Lodging News, welcomes Dometic as a Green Product & Service Directory partner in the Minibars & Safes category. Dometic is the world’s leading supplier of hotel minibars to the hospitality industry. In 2015, there were 5 million Dometic minibars and refrigerators in hotel rooms around the world. Dometic’s stylish and energy-efficient range of drawer miniBars now includes the first ever A++ rated and noiseless miniBar (Dometic DM 20 drawer miniBar). The top of the line HiPro miniBars come with remote control temperature adjustment, lowest energy consumption for absorption miniBars and...

CHICAGO—For the lodging, multi-family and commercial building industry, it’s sure to be a breath of fresh air when Friedrich, a leading U.S.-based manufacturer of heating, cooling and other air-conditioning products, launches its new PTAC system at this year’s AHR Expo in Chicago, January 22 to 24. Called Friedrich FreshAire PTAC, the company is once again pioneering what’s possible for achieving exceptional indoor air quality by introducing the first-ever PTAC to combine an energy efficient inverter compressor with the ability to bring in conditioned make-up air (MUA). Friedrich FreshAire PTAC is a game-changer for being able to meet ASHRAE 62.1-2013 standards, which...

It takes a lot for me to call a new product or process a game changer in our industry but the new recyclable—yes recyclable—sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers being produced by Pürlin, LLC are just that. Can you imagine reducing your laundry load and related costs by about 50 percent? Offering your guests linens that are high quality, hypoallergenic and that have never been used by any other guest—every single time a guest stays in that room? My article posted this past week explains these new products. I had a chance to sit down and chat with the lodging...

SARASOTA, FLA.—Hotel industry veteran Richard Ferrell, President of Pürlin, LLC, is aiming to revolutionize how sheets and pillow cases are managed in hotels across the United States. His company’s linens are not laundered; instead, after being used by a guest they are picked up to be 100 percent recycled. Made of high-quality microfibers designed to simulate cotton—the same as those used in products such as baby diapers and athletic wear—the sheets and pillowcases are produced and recycled by companies based in Florida and North Carolina. Once heated to 500+ degrees Fahrenheit, the linens are liquefied and become the ingredients...

BENTON HARBOR, MICH.—Whirlpool Corp. has risen in the Newsweek Green Rankings to 50 and 82 on the national and global lists respectively. The rankings assess the environmental performance of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States and the world. This year, Whirlpool Corp. was classified as a “top-ranked company,” a designation awarded to fewer than 100 companies on either list. “The people at Whirlpool Corporation continuously strive to protect the planet by being more efficient in how we build innovative products that consume less energy,” said Ron Voglewede, Director of Global Sustainability for Whirlpool Corp. “This distinction is a...

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...