CORAL GABLES, FLA.—The Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Assn. (CHTA) will conduct its first hospitality and tourism conference since 2007 under the banner of the Caribbean Hospitality Industry Education Forum (CHIEF). According to CHTA, the event will include opportunities to learn how to adopt green sustainable development strategies to improve energy efficiency in every area of both hotel and tourism infrastructure. “The time is right to have a forum that brings together hoteliers and our allied members,” said Richard Doumeng, president of CHTA. “It will be an educational and sales setting with a strong focus on the use of technology...

WALTHAM, MASS.—American DG Energy Inc., a leading On Site Utility, offering clean electricity, heat, hot water and cooling solutions to hospitality, healthcare, housing and athletic facilities, announced that it has reached agreements with Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. to manage an energy plant conversion, along with installation and maintenance of a combined heat and power (CHP) system at the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton New York City—Times Square. The agreements should provide American DG Energy with approximately $1,300,000 in revenue in 2014.Having completed a feasibility study for the property, American DG Energy was selected to oversee a complete energy plant conversion...

NATIONAL REPORT—Almost exactly a year ago, McDonald’s USA announced it would become the first national restaurant chain to adopt the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) blue ecolabel on its fish packaging in restaurants in the United States. McDonald’s made a similar commitment in Europe in 2011. McDonald’s decision has had significant impact on the fishing industry; more than 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants across the United States have met the MSC Chain of Custody standard for traceability, which is the ability to track the fish all the way back through the supply chain to the fishery.While what McDonald’s has done with its...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A partnership announced recently uses forensic wood science to test the accuracy of environmental claims being made about forest products from around the world. The landmark agreement between the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) establishes a cooperative research program in which forensic wood science is employed to investigate supply chain integrity, verify product claims, and identify opportunities to use the best available and emerging forensic wood science to verify the accuracy of claims found on FSC-certified products.“This is a cutting-edge effort to further ensure FSC claims are accurate,” said Kim...

LAS VEGAS—Las Vegas Sands Corp. recently held its first-ever Sands Supplier Excellence Awards, recognizing the outstanding services of its suppliers and vendors around the world. During several Sands Supplier Appreciation Dinners in Macao, Singapore, Las Vegas, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the company acknowledged its indebtedness to the local communities in which it does business.“Our company is not an isolated island, but part of the greater communities in which we do business,” said Michael Leven, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. These awards recognize that fact.“Our success at LVS and the success of our suppliers have gone...

ANN ARBOR, MICH.—The Natural Stone Council (NSC), an organization that promotes the use of natural stone in commercial, residential, government, institutional and educational applications, and NSF International, an independent global organization that writes public health and environmental standards for the food, water, commercial and consumer goods industries, have developed the first sustainability assessment standard for stone—NSC 373 Sustainability Assessment for Natural Dimension Stone. The standard defines criteria for the sustainable development aspects of dimensional stone production while harmonizing environmental requirements for stone quarrying and production.NSC utilized NSF International’s technical expertise as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited standards developer...

SINGAPORE—Hilton Worldwide announced the expansion of its Carbon Offset Program in Southeast Asia with three new renewable energy projects receiving support for 2014. The Mungcharoen Biomass Project in Thailand, the Musi Hydro Project in Indonesia, and the Song Ong Small Hydro Project in Vietnam will join the Borneo Rainforest Rehabilitation Project in Malaysia as beneficiaries of the program.Initiated in October 2012, Hilton Worldwide’s Carbon Offset Program in Southeast Asia measures carbon generated by meetings and events held at Hilton Worldwide properties in the region, and, at no cost to customers, offsets this through the purchase of carbon credits. Hotels...

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA—More than 200 journalists, advocates, and world leaders in ecotourism came together in November for the Fourth Annual International Conference on Sustainable Tourism. Hosted by the Costa Rica National Chamber of Ecotourism (CANAECO) and the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT), the P3 event (Planet, People, Peace) covered environmental issues for the future of tourism and sustainable practices. Held in San Jose, Costa Rica, P3 brought together members of the media and 25 experts in the fields of technology, tourism, sustainability, conservation, and environmental studies. “The major goal of the conference,” said CANAECO president, Glenn Jampol, “was to convene...

TAMPA, FLA.—Hasek Communications, the Tampa, Fla.-based publisher of Green Lodging News, has added a Verdafero case study to its Vendor Case Studies section. The case study details the implementation of the MyVerdafero—Utility Optimization Software Platform at the Hilton Concord in Concord, Calif. To help hotel management gain greater transparency into the impact of their sustainability initiatives, Verdafero, a San Francisco provider of SaaS software and services, worked alongside Hilton Concord management and Hotel Sustainability Solutions, Inc. (HSSI), to implement their software platform at the hotel. HSSI, a consulting firm providing comprehensive expertise and management of integrated sustainability systems, technologies...

HONG KONG—In recognition of Shangri-La Asia Limited’s corporate sustainability leadership, the company has been listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). It is the only hotel group to be included in the index component within Asia Pacific and it is the first time Shangri-La has been made a constituent.Launched in 1999, the DJSI track the financial performance of leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. The annual DJSI, compiled by Dow Jones and RobecoSAM Group, assess a company’s corporate sustainability performance from the economic, environmental and social development aspects. This year, DJSI reviewed 2,500 companies around the world and 333 companies...