WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—Omaha’s dynamic Midtown Crossing district will be the site of a new Element hotel. Element is a Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. brand. When it opens November 4, Element Omaha Midtown Crossing will become the first hotel in Midtown, and mark Element’s debut in the U.S. Midwest. Part of the thriving Midtown Crossing development, and just minutes from downtown Omaha and Eppley Airfield, Element Omaha Midtown Crossing is ideally situated beside the natural beauty of Turner Park. Omaha is home to five Fortune 500 companies and cultural attractions such as The Orpheum Theater and Joslyn Art...

ORLANDO, FLA.—Clean the World was in the right place at the right time during the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti. Shawn Seipler, executive director at Clean the World, and William Lowry, director of global development, were on a planned October 19 to 22 soap distribution trip to Haiti when word of a fatal cholera outbreak was first announced. The deadly epidemic, confirmed October 21 by the World Health Organization, claimed more than 300 lives in less than a week with many more deaths expected.  The mission was clear: Clean the World was in a position to provide soap to...

MINNEAPOLIS—The solar array at the Minneapolis Convention Center now has 403 of its 2,613 solar panels installed. The Minneapolis Convention Center’s solar array will be the Upper Midwest’s largest solar photovoltaic system, connected directly to the convention center’s internal electrical system and producing 750,000 kWh of renewable energy per year. This system will produce the equivalent of powering 85 homes annually, while offsetting 539 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions (the amount given off by 60,587 gallons of gasoline). Solar energy is clean, renewable and—once the capital costs are paid—free. “The Convention Center is Minneapolis’ living room, where we welcome...

SILVER SPRING, MD.—Employees from Choice Hotels International recently joined signature cause partner, Rebuilding Together, for the second annual “Room to Rebuild” project, revitalizing two Montgomery County homes. Choice Hotels has been a partner of Rebuilding Together since September 2009, debuting its Room to Rebuild partnership to help revitalize homes nationwide and in its own backyard. Since that time, the company has sponsored, and its associates volunteered, for numerous rebuilding projects, and in 2009 alone almost 1,000 volunteers from Choice Hotels spent more than 6,000 hours on Rebuilding Together projects across the country. This year Choice Hotels associates and franchisees will...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program announced that Morrison Residence Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has won the first-ever EPA National Building Competition. The competition, launched on April 27, 2010, challenged teams from 14 buildings across the country to measure their building’s energy use with help from the Energy Star program and work off the waste. After a hard-fought competition, Morrison Residence Hall reduced its energy use by 35.7 percent in just one year, saved more than $250,000 on their energy bills and reduced more than 730 metric tons of...

DALLAS—For the second year in a row, The Fairmont Dallas was recognized by the Hotel Association of North Texas, (HANTX) at the 2010 HOSPY awards as the Green Hotel of the Year for its persistent efforts to operate the luxury property with minimal impact on the environment. Surrounded by the city’s industry leaders on Friday, October 22 at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel, Jeff Floyd, director of engineering at The Fairmont Dallas, accepted the award. Fittingly, Floyd leads the hotel’s green efforts and has been the catalyst for several of the property’s most recent eco-friendly projects, including one that pipes...

AVON, COLO.—A passionate group of spa professionals representing a broad range of the wellness and sustainability industries gathered during the first week in October for the 2010 Green Spa Network Fall Congress at the LEED certified Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa at Beaver Creek Mountain. The event explored new means to support green initiatives, nurture stronger community ties, and recalibrate spa models, i.e., the value proposition of spas and why people visit them, to adapt to a changing economy. Reflecting these themes, the Green Spa Network established a new vision for the role spas can play with their clientele and...

TORONTO—A three-floor, 114-bed hostel in Toronto that will open within the next couple of weeks could very well be the most energy efficient lodging establishment in North America. Incorporating solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, geothermal and heat capture technologies, the “low carbon” hostel will produce 75 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a comparable building its size. The hostel’s name is the Planet Traveler and co-developer Tom Rand says the property is by far the best in class for hostels and was built to the standards of a boutique hotel. The cost for the energy-saving systems was $200,000, just 5 percent...

MCLEAN, VA.—Hilton Worldwide announced that it is a recipient of a 2010 Global Vision Award from Travel + Leisure. Recognizing the outstanding efforts of individuals and organizations that are working to preserve the world’s natural and man-made treasures, Travel + Leisure honored Hilton Worldwide with the award in the Corporate Greening category for the company’s new LightStay sustainability tracking system. “We are honored to receive a Travel + Leisure 2010 Global Vision Award,” said Paul Brown, president of global brands and commercial services, Hilton Worldwide. “LightStay was developed to improve individual hotel performance while decreasing the company’s overall impact...

NEW YORK—The number of exhibitors intending to feature green products at this year’s 2010 International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS) now stands at 76 out of a total of 734 (10.3 percent) according to the IHMRS website. The annual event will run Saturday, November 13 through Tuesday, November 16, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. To access the list of green suppliers, go to the IHMRS site, click on the “Exhibitor Search” link, under “Product Category” choose “Hotel/Motel – Green Products” and then click “Go.” Suppliers will offer the following types of products at the trade...