Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group is at it again with its 1 Hotels brand. This past week the Group announced the opening of 1 Hotel San Francisco. The hotel joins six other 1 Hotels currently open in South Beach, Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge, West Hollywood, Sanya (China), and Toronto. 1 Hotels are in development in Nashville, Hanalei Bay (Hawaii), Cabo San Lucas (Mexico), Paris, London, Mission Bay (Calif.), Elounda Hills (Crete) and Melbourne. 1 Hotels is certainly one of our industry’s greenest brands. Its website describes its hotels as a place “where architecture adopts the natural curvature and fluidity of its...

Utilizing breakthroughs in design and technology, hotel owners and designers around the world are establishing new benchmarks for what it means to be a “dark” green hotel—one that has gone far beyond investing in easy low-hanging fruit. As published previously on Green Lodging News, Hotel Marcel New Haven, Tapestry Collection by Hilton just opened within the last two weeks in Connecticut. It is believed to be the first net-zero hotel in the United States. It will utilize renewable solar power sources on site to generate the electricity needed for its common areas, restaurant, laundry, meeting rooms and 165 guestrooms and...

Finding solutions to single-use plastic is the focus of a lot of for-profit and nonprofit companies these days. I mentioned Clean the World’s efforts in a recent article. This past week I posted an article on LOLIWARE and its unique approach to plastic replacement. This coming week I will be chatting with a company that converts post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste into something called STORM BOARD—a replacement for plywood or other wood fiber boards in applications where water resistance and durability are critical. Many of my advertisers—and readers—are also finding their own ways to reduce plastic consumption. The more...

Two of the industry’s largest franchisors recently announced stepped up efforts to give women the opportunity to own and develop hotels—Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Choice Hotels International, Inc. The help is definitely needed. According to the 2022 Castell Project Women in Hospitality Industry Leadership Report, for every nine men, there is only one woman who enters into hotel investment and development across the hospitality industry. According to Wyndham, while the tourism and hospitality industry workforce is comprised of 70 percent women, only 10 percent of development roles are held by them. In Wyndham’s case, its program is called “Women Own...

Green Lodging News will turn 16 this July. It was approximately three years after the launch of Green Lodging News that Clean the World was launched. Many of you have worked with Clean the World over the years by donating money or new or partially used soap bars and amenity bottles. If, because of the pandemic, you stopped donating, please start again. The need is just as great or greater, especially with the attack of Ukraine by Russia. (Volunteers in Arlington, Va., and Seattle are in the process of assembling 200,000 hygiene kits for victims of the war there....

It was a busy news week again this past week—as most are given the momentum of sustainability efforts in our industry. First, I would like to highlight that Choice Hotels International appointed Megan Brumagim to the newly created role of Vice President of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). In this new role, Brumagim will lead Choice’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives. Brumagim knows Choice well, having joined the company in 2015 as the head of the company’s flagship Comfort Hotels brand and quickly ascended to the position of Vice President of Brand Management, Design and Compliance, where she...

To help clarify what every hotel should be doing at a minimum to reduce its impact on the planet, the World Travel & Tourism Council this past week launched its Hotel Sustainability Basics. The announcement was made at the WTTC Global Summit in Manila, The Philippines. It was an important step because many hotels are still not doing enough to save energy, water, reduce waste, etc. “Developed by the industry for the industry, it highlights 12 actions which are fundamental to hotel sustainability and will help raise the base level of sustainability across the entire hospitality industry by providing every...

As I am writing this, Earth Day is just one week away. How will your property mark this important day? This is my 16th year writing an Earth Day column. While there is certainly much good news to share about our industry’s efforts throughout the year, I often wonder if our industry’s net carbon impact on the planet will ever decrease (it may have during the pandemic) given our industry’s business model built on never-ending growth. As citizens of this planet, we certainly are not doing enough. Earlier this month, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that...

This week I would like to draw your attention to two well-known companies: Radisson Hotel Group and Club Med. As part of its Responsible Business Report 2021, Radisson Hotel Group just released news that it intends to reach net zero value chain GHG emissions by no later than 2050, in line with the SBTi Net-Zero Standard. In 2021, the Group reduced its carbon footprint by 23 percent per square meter and reduced 13 percent of its water footprint per square meter (vs. 2019). In line with the Group’s renewable energy transition strategy, more than 56 properties run 100 percent...

If you still are not convinced that going green, focusing on wellness, and promoting your hotel that way is the best way to position your business, allow me to share the results of several reports that “hit my desk” this past week. First, The Vacationer, an online travel journal, posted its Sustainable Travel Survey 2022 results. The anonymous survey included 1,096 American adults over the age of 18 and was conducted online using SurveyMonkey’s interface/audience on March 1, 2022. Eric Jones analyzed the survey. He is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Rowan College South Jersey. When asked how important sustainable travel is...