SANTA MONICA, CALIF.—Shore Hotel, Santa Monica’s newest hotel, announces a progressive concierge service that makes green living easy and accessible. The Green Concierge is the hotel’s own local expert on all things sustainable and eco-friendly. From activities to services, transportation to nightlife, Shore Hotel’s Green Concierge is an innovative resource for guests going green in Santa Monica. With the creation of the Green Concierge program, Shore Hotel has taken eco-conscious service to the next level. Committed to providing guests with an exemplary experience, while promoting all things eco-friendly and sustainable, the Green Concierge ensures guests can live the good life...

BANGKOK—Six Senses Resorts & Spas, a globally recognized leader in the field of sustainable tourism, is to create one of the largest reforestation projects in South East Asia as part of its commitment to the fight against climate change. The company has partnered with the PATT Foundation to plant more than 200,000 trees per year in the Chiang Mai region of northern Thailand. The project represents a multimillion dollar commitment by Six Senses over the next decade and beyond. The project will mitigate an estimated 160,000 tons of CO2 annually by replanting 200 acres of forest every 12 months. Between...

MINNEAPOLIS—Carlson, a global hospitality and travel company, announced an agreement between Carlson Hotels and Clean the World Global LLC, a social enterprise committed to saving lives and protecting the planet, to collect and recycle hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels to help fight the global spread of preventable diseases. Clean the World presently works with 19 Carlson affiliated hotels that have contributed more than 8,060 pounds of soap (nearly 43,000 soap bars). The donated soap provides 8,600 children with enough soap for an entire month. The agreement, part of Carlson’s Responsible Business program, encompasses 607 hotels in North America and...

NEW YORK—Ten exhibitors received Editors’ Choice Awards during the Opening Ceremonies of the 96th annual International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS) and 2nd annual Boutique Design New York (BDNY), Sunday, November 13, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The awards recognize best new products within the categories of design, equipment & supplies, guest amenities, tabletop, and technology, as well as an eco-friendly equivalent to each of these categories. From the 10 winners, the Kenneth F. Hine “Best of Show” Award also was selected.The 2011 Editors’ Choice Award winners are:Kenneth F. Hine “Best of Show”—Corkcicle for...

ORLANDO—The Third Annual Green Lodging and Hospitality Conference wrapped up here on Wednesday, November 9 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel at the Entrance to Universal Orlando. A total of 135 attended the event that included educational opportunities as well as vendor exhibits. The opening session featured a keynote address by Hervé Houdré, general manager, InterContinental New York Barclay, and an introduction to the National Sustainable Lodging Network, a recently released social networking site for those interested in green lodging. Houdré, in his speech entitled, “Sustainable Hospitality, a Business Responsibility and Opportunity,” explained that sustainability is a shared responsibility that...

NEW YORK—Sustainability consultancy MindClick SGM, founder and leader of the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium, is working with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to advance the shared mission of a sustainable future for hospitality.  The rapidly growing Consortium, comprised of more than 25 global companies, is creating a scorecard rating system to measure the sustainability performance of suppliers of hotel furnishings and supplies. The scorecard, known as the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Index (HSP Index), measures corporate social responsibility, product, and environmental sustainability performance. Consortium members are currently evaluating the HSP Index to ensure that it meets the information and measurement...

ORLANDO—The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Central Florida Chapter announced the launch of Green Destination Orlando at the closing general session of the Green Lodging and Hospitality conference at the Doubletree Hotel near Universal Orlando.With more than 50 million visitors each year, Orlando is one of the world’s most popular vacation and business travel destinations. The Green Destination Orlando (GDO) program is a plan to make Orlando the leading green destination in the world by creating a total sustainable experience—from the moment a visitor steps off the plane in Orlando, to the transportation to their hotel, their stay at...

MCLEAN, VA.—Hilton Worldwide announced a partnership with the Global Soap Project, a nonprofit organization that recovers and recycles soap from hotels that would otherwise end up in landfills. The Global Soap Project sorts, reprocesses and remolds used soap into new bars and distributes them to vulnerable populations in developing countries who are at risk of sanitation and hygiene-related disease. In its first year of the partnership, Hilton Worldwide expects this investment to result in the donation of more than one million new 4-ounce bars of soap to people in need. “At Hilton Worldwide, we are constantly measuring, analyzing and...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) WaterSense program announced today that irrigation controllers will soon be the first outdoor product eligible to earn the WaterSense label. The most efficient irrigation controllers, which operate like a thermostat for a sprinkler system by telling it when to turn on and off, may provide home and building owners the ability to save 110 billion gallons of water and roughly $410 million per year on utility bills.“As much as half of the water we use on our landscapes goes to waste due to evaporation, wind, and improperly scheduled irrigation systems,” said Sheila...

NATIONAL REPORT—The hospitality industry is no stranger to green initiatives and has been committed to sustainability programs for a long time. With the 24/7 nature of their operations, hotels, restaurants, and related businesses have a huge impact on the Earth’s resources, making the conservation of water, energy, and raw materials a top priority that also makes good business sense for owners. According to the EPA Energy Star Program, U.S. hotels spend close to $4 billion on energy costs each year and are the fourth most intensive users of energy in the commercial sector. Lighting accounts for nearly 25 percent of...