BETHESDA, MD.—In honor of Earth Day and Environmental Awareness Month, Marriott International is hosting its first green products fair for more than 3,000 employees at Marriott headquarters. The event will be held Friday, April 20. Local vendors—EcoLab, Whole Foods, Eco-Coach, Green Living, Clean Energy Currents, Starbucks, Clean Up the World and more—will showcase their latest eco-friendly products from paint, carpet and flooring to green travel, recycling and organic food. Associates will also have a chance to check out the latest hybrid cars from Toyota and Ford. Elected officials have also been invited.
Guest speakers include: Dennis Dimick, Executive Editor of National Geographic Magazine; and Kim McKay, author of True Green and co-founder of the 35-million-volunteer organization, Clean Up the World. They will share their ideas on how to be green at home, work and play.
Additionally, Marriott is partnering with two Washington, D.C.-based nonprofits, Suited for Change and MenzFit, to provide “well worn” professional clothing to low-income men and women entering the work force as a part of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” philosophy.
YouTube Green Video Contest
Hotel guests worldwide are invited to participate in Marriott’s first online video contest via YouTube, www.youtube.com/Marriott. The best green video (three minutes or less), will receive a six-day, five-night “eco-cation” at the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort in Costa Rica.
Marriott’s goal for these programs is to educate its guests, business associates and employees on how to be green at home, work and play. Marriott has a number of green initiatives that have been implemented globally as a part of its ECHO (Environmentally Conscious Hotel Operations) program launched over a decade ago. Such initiatives include Linen ReUse, Group ReLamp and the replacement of 450,000 light bulbs and 400,000 showerheads in the United States.
Success of these programs has earned Marriott the Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Partner of the Year Award since 2004. Recently, Marriott reported that it is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly one-fifth over a ten-year period from 2000 to 2010—approaching 1 million tons of climate warming gases, or the equivalent of taking nearly 140,000 cars off the roads.
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