Name: Kit Cassingham
Title: Consultant and Founder of Environmentally Friendly Hotels
Company: Sage Blossom Consulting, Ridgway, Colo.
Number of years with company: 18
Year company founded: 1989
Work experience prior to current position: “I was in the hospitality industry as a B&B innkeeper.”
Primary responsibilities: “I am primarily a B&B consultant. I conduct seminars, including online seminars. I teach environmental innkeeping.”
What she likes most about her work: “I like to see people realize they can make a difference. I enjoy seeing successes and people changing their ways.”
RIDGWAY, COLO.—Kit Cassingham knows a thing or two about what comprises a green hotel. Before launching her Environmentally Friendly Hotels website two years ago, she researched the various green lodging certification programs to see what criteria they used to determine what is green or not green. She came up with her own checklist for lodging establishments to use when posting their information to her site—www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com.
Cassingham’s website, which has been cited by major media such as MSNBC as one of the best sources for green lodging, includes a list of 2,242 properties. Site members include those that have taken at least one meaningful environmental action. Site visitors can search by property name or location, or even by specific green issues—whether or not the property has a towel and linen reuse program, for example.
“If they do one thing that is green, I will put them on the site,” Cassingham says. “I developed the rating system so that people can see there are different levels of being green.”
Cassingham, who did not start promoting her site until it had 700 hotels, says her site has about a 50 percent representation of non-U.S. properties.
“In some ways, the non-U.S. hotels do a better job talking about their green actions,” she says.
A frequent attendee of green lodging events, Cassingham has almost always had a passion for environmental issues. She has a degree in environmental conservation and lives in one of the most scenic locations in America—Ridgway, Colorado. In addition to running her Environmentally Friendly Hotels website, she also runs www.ECOnomicallysound.com. It is at that site where she posts articles helpful to those interested in green lodging.
B&B Operations Specialist
When she is not busy running her two helpful websites, Cassingham runs her own consulting firm, Sage Blossom Consulting, which focuses on assisting B&Bs in their pursuit of sustainable operations. Calling herself “The B&B Lady,” she helps innkeepers understand the benefits of good indoor air quality, water conservation, green flooring, mattresses and window coverings.
“The one issue I am talking a lot about now is water conservation,” Cassingham says. “It is an area where hotels need to be paying more attention—from the bathroom, to the kitchen and laundry, to landscaping.”
The B&B Lady says that when she started working on her sites several years ago, there was minimal interest in what she was doing.
“That has been changing lately,” she says.
She cites the number of green conferences that have been held as one good sign that the lodging industry is beginning to give green operations more serious thought.
An online form at www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com enables one to submit a hotel for consideration. One may also send kit a message via that site.
Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
