Green Lodging News applauds Choice Hotels International and the Choice Hotels Owners Council for deciding to convert all 433 Comfort Suites hotels in the United States to 100 percent nonsmoking properties. As reported here this past week, the new policy will go into effect on May 1. The decision to go smoke free means that hotel employees and guests—especially those with allergy sensitivities—will all breathe a lot easier. Choice joins an elite group of companies that already have eliminated smoking: Marriott International in all of its U.S. and Canada properties, Westin Hotels & Resorts in its U.S., Canada...

Late in the 19th century, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the electric incandescent lamp. Six years later, he got his patent. Since that time, the world has been dependent on incandescents. Over the past several months, however, two announcements were made with the intent of moving us all away from them. The first was an announcement made by Royal Philips Electronics in December. The second was one made by a California legislator late last month. Royal Philips Electronics, in Brussels, Belgium, called for joint action between the lighting industry, nongovernmental organizations, energy suppliers and governments to discuss...

A report released last week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reaffirmed what previous reports have concluded: Global warming is occurring and there is at least a 90 percent chance that humans are responsible. Unless you have been avoiding the media the last few years, the findings should come as no surprise. Almost every day there has been news about receding glaciers, record average temperatures, disappearing species, and greenhouse gas increases. In different ways, we are all contributors to climate change—as consumers and as owners and operators of lodging establishments. Some of us are guiltier...

Next Sunday, hundreds of millions of people will gather in homes, restaurants and bars to watch the Super Bowl. As a Cleveland Browns fan (egads, it hurts to say that these days), I have little interest in the outcome, although I do admit it would be nice for Peyton Manning to finally win it all. I say that at the risk of forever alienating any Chicago Bears fan who happens to be reading this column. Here is one thing you probably did not know about the big game: The National Football League (NFL) will be planting trees and buying...

Carbon monoxide, a killer, should be the No. 1 indoor air quality concern at your property. Do you have detectors installed in your guestrooms? In other areas? If not, why? How can you truly be a green hotel if you are not doing all you can to protect your guests and staff from this silent, invisible danger? Hundreds lose their lives each year after having been exposed to carbon monoxide buildup in an enclosed area. Just last month in Key West, Fla., a 26-year-old man died in a guestroom at an upscale hotel. The man’s father nearly died as...

Congratulations to the City of Vancouver, Wash., Hilton Hotels Corp. and Fletcher Farr Ayotte (FFA) Architects for successfully obtaining Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the Hilton Vancouver Washington hotel. The 226-room property, owned by the City of Vancouver, was designed by FFA and is managed by Hilton Hotels Corp. Only a few other properties in the United States have reached LEED certification status. The Hilton Vancouver Washington earned a LEED-NC rating because it adhered to guidelines established for new construction. I recently spoke with Gerry Link, general manager of the hotel, and he was...

In the six months that I have been publishing Green Lodging News, I have been able to identify many of the companies that aggressively promote and practice sustainable operations. Some smaller companies with a handful of properties are doing an incredible number of things. In the overall “save the planet” scheme of things, their impact is small. At the same time, however, some of the largest hotel companies are doing almost nothing. If they did just a little, their impact would be huge because of the number of hotel rooms that would be impacted. One large hotel company...

At the recent International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) Annual Conference in Miami, ISHC members participated in a series of roundtable discussions to identify their Top Ten Issues in the Hospitality Industry for 2007. From one to 10, their list included the following: labor and skills shortages; construction costs; technology and keeping up with it; changing demographics and their impact on travel trends; future of hotel profits; branding; distribution revolution; travel restrictions; global emerging markets; and capital availability. Knowing that ISHC represents a significant part of the lodging industry’s brain power, it was disheartening that rising energy costs...

Before writing an article on furniture refinishing last week, I had never thought about the volume of furniture that the lodging industry must send to landfills each year. Mario Insenga, principal, The Refinishing Touch, Alpharetta, Ga., helped me understand the problem. His company diverts a great deal of furniture from the waste stream by refinishing it. Lately, his company has been saving many of the industry’s armoires by converting them to useable pieces. The hefty armoires have become outdated because of the introduction of flat screen TVs. When your guestroom, lobby, restaurant or meeting room furniture becomes outdated,...

I have always been fascinated by small inns and bed and breakfasts. It may have something to do with my addiction to reading “The Lord of the Rings” when I was a child. Frodo and his pals stopped at an inn called the Prancing Pony on their way toward Mordor. I always wondered what it would have been like to have stayed at that strange but magical place. I don’t believe there was anything “green” about that inn—except maybe a few elves. They may not always get the publicity that large hotel operators get but owners of small...