Will our industry pass one of its biggest tests ever? To show compassion to the victims of the storms currently hitting the United States one after the other? I hope it will. As mentioned on Green Lodging News this past week, Wynn Resorts donated $7.5 million to the victims of both Hurricane Harvey and Typhoon Hato. Clean the World Foundation and Guest Supply partnered to provide 60,000 hygiene kits and linens to Hurricane Harvey victims in Houston. In Texas, many hotels have lowered rates for storm victims. (Unfortunately, one hotel tripled its rates.) All of our industry’s companies should step up...

Be sure to read my article this week that provides an update on the 20+ state and city level green certification/designation/recognition programs. I try to take a close look at our list on an annual basis. I almost always delete a program from my list. This year I deleted Rhode Island after not hearing back from their program’s representative. Their website, still “live”, has not been updated in two years and lists events from five years ago. Yikes. In recent years I have not been adding to my list. I still believe there is a lot of value in...

It was a year ago that I first wrote here about the launch of Kind Traveler. For those of you not familiar with the hotel booking platform, the way it works is simple: travelers give a $10 nightly donation to a local charity that positively impacts the neighborhood they are traveling to, or to a charity of choice; as reward for their donation, travelers unlock an exclusive hotel rate and special perks with curated hotels and unique properties throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica. According to Jessica Blotter, CEO & Co-Founder of Kind Traveler,...

Greenview has just released its fourth annual Green Venue Report. I highly recommend reading through this very comprehensive 82-page document. You need not have meeting space to benefit from it. The 2017 Green Venue Report: The State of Convention and Exhibition Center Sustainability compiles data from 66 convention and exhibition centers across 16 countries and four continents (a 50 percent increase from 2016). The report is packed with examples of best practices, three-year trend graphics, and comparisons of green performance over a wide range of areas, including: energy efficiency, waste management, water usage, food and beverage services, cleaning practices,...

A number of years ago, while walking what was then called the International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show, I came across a company that had developed a system to recycle and reuse water from a shower. I don’t recall ever seeing that company again. Perhaps it was a technology that was just ahead of its time. If you do some online searching today, you will find some companies with systems that cleanse and filter shower water for reuse for toilet flushing. I have occasionally come across these types of systems. Greywater, the relatively clean waste water from showers, baths, sinks, washing...

If you visit the “Wind Powered” section in the “Renewable Energy All Stars” part of the Green Lodging News website, you will find 15 U.S. properties listed. One of those listed is the Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort in Hancock, Mass. I first posted an article about the property back in 2008 when it marked the first anniversary of its 1.5-megawatt wind turbine. According to a spokesman for the property in 2008, the resort’s owners expected they would recover their $4.2 million investment in about eight to nine years based on the electricity rates at that time. Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort...

Let’s call it one of the most important announcements ever made by a hospitality company. This past week, Vail Resorts, Inc. unveiled its “Epic Promise for a Zero Footprint”. Announced to employees at a company event, the plan commits to zero net emissions by 2030, zero waste to landfill by 2030 and zero net operating impact to forests and habitat. Vail Resorts created a special website for its plan as well as a video that opens with Chairman and CEO Rob Katz discussing the “Epic Promise”. Be sure to visit the website and watch the video. How does Vail Resorts...

Is the lodging industry contributing to the “Sixth Extinction”? It is a very important question to consider. Several years ago, Elizabeth Colbert wrote a book entitled, “The Sixth Extinction” that proposed we are headed for the first mankind-induced cataclysm—the first five mass extinctions being natural. This past week an article was published in Science Advances to remind us again of the situation our planet faces. The article, entitled, “Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction,” has six authors, one of whom is Paul Ehrlich. In the 1960s, Ehrlich wrote “The Population Bomb,” a book that predicted the...

The results of the second annual Green Lodging Trends Report survey are beginning to come in. I will be writing the report along with Greenview in the coming weeks. Be sure to watch for the final version in September. One of the things that has always intrigued me about sustainability in hotels is how hoteliers keep staff interested. In this year’s survey we asked hoteliers what their greatest challenges are around staff involvement. We also asked hoteliers how they celebrate their successes for moving their property toward greater efficiency. I will share a few of the responses from our survey...

I vacationed this past week in my home state of Ohio and had an opportunity to chat with a friend who drives a Tesla. He and his wife were among the first to buy a hybrid Toyota Prius 13 years ago. I asked him how he likes his electric car and he just went on and on about it. He has taken long trips with it and experienced no problems. With just one moving part—the motor—electric vehicles are very reliable and certainly a threat to businesses used to profiting from the repair of gas-powered vehicles. Eventually they will have...