I had an opportunity to attend the first day of the Ecotourism and Sustainable Conference North America last week. The event was held in Tampa, Fla. at the Patel Center for Global Solutions at the University of South Florida. It was the first North America conference for the International Ecotourism Society. Approximately 100 attended the first day of the event. About 30 or so could not make it because of weather-caused flight cancellations. The conference featured speakers who provided a global perspective on the environmental challenges we all face while also featuring case studies on specific properties or projects....

Just a few months ago the International Tourism Partnership (ITP) and Greenview launched the Hotel Footprinting Tool. With the free tool one can access the carbon and energy footprint of thousands of hotels worldwide—ideal for those interested in benchmarking their own hotels’ performance. The Hotel Footprinting Tool uses data from the annual Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Study. Using the tool one can create reports of the carbon footprint of an individual or businesses’ hotel stays and meetings. Travel planners and corporate responsibility managers can use it to report on or offset their business travel emissions. If you have not...

number of times now I have received press releases from folks with inaccurate information regarding the number of LEED Platinum hotels in North America. This week, for example, a PR agency sent me a release about the W San Francisco, stating that it is the fourth hotel in North America to reach LEED Platinum status. Somebody did not do their homework as the W San Francisco is really the fifth hotel in North America to earn LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). I suggested retracting the original release and sending out a correct version. Will...

The results of a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, SUNY Upstate Medical University, and Syracuse University show the connection between well-ventilated buildings and improved worker decision-making. In fact, the study of 24 workers found that improved indoor environmental quality actually doubled occupants’ cognitive function test scores. In the study, the 24 professional employees—architects, designers, programmers, engineers, creative marketing professionals and managers—participated in a six-day study examining the impact of green buildings on cognitive performance and decision-making performance. For the two-week test period, they relocated to the Total...