SAINT CHARLES, MO.—Pineapple Hospitality and the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. (AH&LA) are trading dollars for trees at industry events throughout 2009. As part of the AH&LA’s Green Partner program, Pineapple Hospitality is pledging to donate $1 for every attendee of this year’s Summer Summit, AH&LEF Golf Classic, HotelPAC Broadmoor Classic, and Fall Conference. AH&LA, in turn, will use each dollar to plant a tree through the Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion campaign.
With the Summer Summit approaching on June 23 to 24 in Chicago, AH&LA already has pledged to plant 840 trees to offset the carbon footprint of the event. And with the support of Pineapple Hospitality and AH&LA’s other Green Partners, hundreds—if not thousands—of more trees will be growing by year’s end.
“Even in these difficult economic times it is the support of our hospitality customers and strategic partnerships with BITAC, Cypress Hotel & SPA, INNCOM, Pure Rooms, and USFI that enable us to partner with AH&LA on this endeavor with The Nature Conservancy,” says Ray Burger, president of Pineapple Hospitality.
Supporting a Greener Future
“All of the strategic partners of Pineapple Hospitality firmly believe in the importance of taking a more environmental approach to business—and trust that sustainability is what’s going to sustain the hospitality industry as we go forward,” Burger adds. “I can’t think of a better way to show our support to this industry and to a greener future than by partnering with AH&LA and the Nature Conservancy on this important initiative.”
Pineapple Hospitality is a distributor of green hotel products and marketing programs for the hospitality industry. Along with its Pineapple partners—a group of companies within the industry that share the same environmental ideals—Pineapple Hospitality is working to both educate and supply the industry with a wide selection of products and programs designed to promote sustainability of both the environment and the bottom line.
The Nature Conservancy is working with partners like AH&LA to save and bring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest back from the brink—restoring 2.5 million acres and planting 1 billion trees over the next seven years—through its Plant a Billion drive. The reforestation efforts will remove 10 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year—the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road. The campaign also will protect 10 critical watersheds in the Atlantic Forest Region, helping provide hydro-powered electricity to more than 70 million people.
One ‘Small’ Step Toward Goal
With the help of national companies like Disney, AT&T, VISA, and many more, combined with local efforts and associations, the Nature Conservancy already has planted more than 5.2 million trees—though that still leaves a long way to go toward 1 billion.
The Conservancy’s mission was the perfect match for what AH&LA was trying to achieve through its Green Partners program.
“We chose the Nature Conservancy’s program based upon their longstanding reputation as an environmental leader, and in light of their Plant a Billion campaign, which is dedicated to planting a billion trees in Brazil ’s Atlantic Forest,” says Netanya Stutz, marketing manager at AH&LA. “We were also drawn to the simplicity of the campaign: $1 = 1 tree. We took this a step further and applied this formula to AH&LA events, where 1 person = $1 = 1 tree, and posed this as an opportunity to engage our eco-conscious members to help us offset the carbon footprint of our events.”
Go to Pineapple, the Nature Conservancy, and the AH&LA
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