The National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show is just 10 days away. It will run from May 20 to 23 and take place at McCormick Place in Chicago. If you plan to walk the show floor, give yourself at least a couple of days as more than 2,000 companies (2,219 at last count) are expected to be exhibiting. Many of those exhibitors will be featuring products and equipment that can help you reduce energy, water and waste. Some of those exhibitors are 2017 Kitchen Innovations Award recipients. Ecolab, for example, was recently recognized with a Kitchen Innovations Award for its...

Corporate Responsibility Magazine just announced its list of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens. This is the 18th year for the list. To appear on the list a company must first appear among the Russell 1000. The Russell 1000 is the list of the 1,000 largest U.S. public companies. For each company, 260 data points of publicly available disclosure and performance measurements were considered. Each company was ranked in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, corporate governance, financial performance, and philanthropy and community support. There were only three lodging companies that made this year’s top 100 list:...

If you are looking to retain Millennials, you may want to pay attention to their preferences for working for companies that pay attention to sustainability. Absent a sustainability program you will not lose everyone but you may lose your best and brightest. According to a new study, “Recycling in the Workplace: A Millennial View”, conducted by Lightspeed, a globally integrated research organization, on behalf of Rubbermaid Commercial Products (RCP), nearly one in 10 Millennials would go so far as quitting their jobs if they found out their current employer was not sustainable. More than 1,000 Millennials participated in the...

In covering green lodging I have often heard about companies that incentivize their business travelers to stay in hotels with sustainable practices. Turns out the practice may be less common than I thought. According to a new study released by the GBTA Foundation, the research and education arm of the Global Business Travel Assn., in partnership with AIG Travel, only one in six travel management professionals (16 percent) currently incentivize their business travelers to stay in hotels with sustainable practices. Even fewer (4 percent) require travelers to book suppliers with sustainable practices. The GBTA Foundation conducted an online survey...

The International Facility Management Association has updated its Sustainability How-to Guide: Global Green Cleaning. The green cleaning guide for facilities managers is free to download. This guide outlines the steps to establish a comprehensive green cleaning program, covering key topics such as indoor air quality, green cleaning products and equipment, greenwashing, green cleaning service providers, the business case for green cleaning, how to develop a green cleaning program, and performance measurements. The authors of the guide have decades of experience in commercial and green cleaning. According to the authors, “The guide has been created to serve as an instrument for...

As published on Green Lodging News, The Rezidor Hotel Group just published its Responsible Business Report 2016. For those of you not familiar with the company, Rezidor’s current core brands include Radisson Blu—the largest upper upscale brand in Europe—and Park Inn by Radisson. Radisson RED is another Rezidor brand. The report, 61 pages long, describes the most important corporate responsibility and sustainability aspects of the company’s operations. Last year was a good one for the company with it being named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for the eighth straight year by Ethisphere. The Rezidor Hotel Group also...

As highlighted in my weekly column this past week, Earth Hour will take place on Saturday, March 25, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time. Pranav Jampani, Director of Sustainability at The Venetian | The Palazzo | Sands Expo, has been sharing the Las Vegas properties' Earth Hour plans with me. The Venetian | The Palazzo | Sands Expo will celebrate Earth Hour in grand style in the Doge’s Palace plaza, in front of The Venetian. The resort’s official “Earth Hour DJ” will lead a countdown to the 8:30 p.m. start of Earth Hour, when all exterior building lights...

This week’s guest blogger is Will Harmon, Marketing Associate at BlueCart. Sustainability is a word that’s tossed around relentlessly, especially now as we transition from winter to spring and we enter the growing season. Sustainable food, sustainable communities, sustainable transportation; almost everything has a sustainable variant these days. That’s fantastic. It wasn’t too long ago that these variants didn’t exist. With viable options for reducing waste, whether it be food scraps or C02, more and more people are able to tap into sustainable resources to streamline their operations for maximum efficiency. One of the cornerstones of the sustainable movement is the...

When it comes to consumer travel habits and the degree to which sustainability comes into play in their travel decisions, little research has been conducted in recent years. To get a recent picture of how travelers make decisions based on sustainable practices, I recommend getting the 2016 report entitled, “The Role of Sustainability in Travel & Tourism.” Research partners included Sustainable Travel International and Mandala Research. Visit California was the lead research sponsor. The purpose of the study was to learn how travelers make decisions based on sustainable practices and commitments and their economic value to the travel industry....

In my years covering green lodging I have written quite a few articles about equipment and technology found in the kitchen to help one save energy, water and reduce waste—bio-digesters, pre-rinse spray valves, warewashers, variable-speed hood controllers, and more. You can read about such topics on the Green Lodging News website in the “Kitchen & Laundry” category. Every time I chat with a supplier I learn something new and that was certainly the case today when I interviewed Craig Gavson, CEO of Hyginix LLC. In case you are not familiar with Hyginix, they manufacture the FOG Tank, a heated...