This past week I had an opportunity to chat with Dominique Cocquet, CEO of Villages Nature. I am working on an article on the very impressive Villages Nature project. For those of you not familiar with it, it is a joint venture of Pierre & Vacances Center Parcs and Euro Disney and is located 20 miles east of Paris and just a few miles from Disneyland Paris. Villages Nature is expected to open next spring with 916 dwellings, more than two-thirds of which will be cottages and one-third family suites. Within the next five years there will be more...

Last week’s article on water bottle filling stations was tweeted about by many and already has had about 1,000 page views. It was great that so many folks got to read the article. While traveling this past week, I saw one of the bottle filling stations I had written about at Philadelphia International Airport. They are certainly becoming more common. In response to my article, I heard from Jack Hlavec, General Manager of the Hilton Concord in Concord, Calif. Jack told me his property, which I have written about numerous times in the past few years, began implementing bottle...

Experts generally agree that approximately 50 billion plastic bottles are used each year in the United States. Only about one-quarter of those are recycled. The lodging industry is certainly an enabler when it comes to plastic bottle waste. One can typically find plastic bottled beverages wherever there is a soda machine or gift shop. What I consider to be a no brainer when it comes to reducing plastic bottle waste is bottle filling stations. This past week I wrapped up an article on bottle filling stations. They are just beginning to take hold in our industry and are currently...

Anniversaries are the types of things that can sneak up on you. In this case, however—my 500th column and 500th weekly e-newsletter—I clearly saw it coming for years. Each week, at the top of my e-newsletter, the “Issue Number” is moved ahead one click. You just can’t avoid the passage of time.Five hundred columns and newsletters. Wow. Early on, it was not always easy generating original content for “green lodging.” Today, however, it is truly a challenge to keep up with all of the developments in green building, operations, products and technologies.Looking back on all of the columns I...

It is a success story that just is not getting the attention it deserves—our industry’s utilization and embracing of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating program. In case you missed it, USGBC recently released its LEED in Motion: Hospitality report which provides an update on our industry’s LEED participation. Compared to when I first launched Green Lodging News almost 10 years ago, the level of interest in LEED has grown tremendously.According to the report, there are more than 400 LEED certified hotels globally, comprising nearly 133.9 million square feet. The...

At the Publix supermarket where I shop here in Florida, there are aisles of refrigerated display cases that go dark when there are no customers in those aisles. As a customer enters the aisle, the lighting begins to come on, but only in those cases that are closest to the customer. A great idea. Could this technology be used somewhere in a hotel? Certainly. Not only in display cases but also in seldom used spaces such as stairways and perhaps even back-of-house areas. A lesson learned from visiting the local supermarket. Learning lessons across industries is the point of...

For most egg-laying hens, it is not an easy life. Raised on factory farms in wire cages, they typically have the space of an iPad to live on for 1.5 to two years—not enough space to do anything other than lay eggs. Josh Balk, Senior Food Policy Director, The Humane Society of the United States, told me that when it comes to animal cruelty, living conditions for egg-laying hens is the No. 1 concern.In case you missed it, earlier this month Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced plans to source 100 percent of its eggs from cage-free chickens across...

“It has absolutely helped us to have such a focus on sustainability.” These are the words of Ed Sutor, President of Dover Downs Hotel & Casino, Dover, Del. I spoke with Ed recently for an article I posted this past week on the property’s sustainability initiatives. I had asked Ed whether or not what Dover Downs does in the area of sustainability brings in new business. “We reply to RFPs all the time,” Ed told me. “Inevitably, one of the questions is: ‘Describe your green program.’ It is critical to getting conventions.”One example of an event that Dover Downs...

I have written or posted articles about food waste frequently over the years—articles focused on everything from food waste prevention to decomposition machines to a food waste disposal ban in Massachusetts. Nine years ago I wrote an article that briefly addressed food waste disposers. A lot can change in nine years and that is why I just posted an updated article on disposers and disposer systems based on my own research as well as conversations with leaders representing our industry’s two leading disposer brands—Salvajor and InSinkErator. Both of these companies, and others, are making it easier to reduce food...

Not unnoticed this past week was news from two U.S. government agencies—NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—that 2015 shattered 2014’s record to become the hottest year since reliable record-keeping began. Fifteen of the 16 hottest years on record have now occurred in this century, according to NASA. NOAA said that for December, the “temperature departure from average was also the highest departure among all months in the historical record and the first time a monthly departure has reached 2°F.” In Paris in December, global leaders agreed that our planet should not be allowed to warm 2...