MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—Room & Board and Room & Board Business Interiors, the home furnishing brand’s commercial arm, announce the expansion of the Urban Wood Project—their groundbreaking national initiative that sources wood otherwise destined for landfills and reclaims it into unique furnishings. The brand is now partnering with Brooklyn-based millwork and design operation, Tri-Lox, to upcycle wood culled from decommissioned New York City water towers and salvaged local trees for an exclusive line of sustainable offerings suitable for hospitality and office spaces. This collaboration, their sixth in the country, builds on Room & Board’s diversion of 200 trees annually from the waste stream, delivering on...

MIAMI—1 Hotels, the luxury lifestyle hotel brand that cultivates the best of sustainable design and architecture, together with extraordinary comfort and an unrivaled level of service, will celebrate Earth Month with a series of brand and property offerings that honor the beauty of the natural world, promote environmental unity and encourage individuals to take small steps towards sustainability. For the month of April, all eight carbon-neutral properties in North America will launch activities and initiatives that promote a more collective effort towards protecting our planet. As a mission driven brand, 1 Hotels aims to serve as a platform for change....

OTTAWA, ONT.—FigBytes, creators of the leading Sustainability Platform for impact-focused organizations, announced its partnership with Patch. The partnership simplifies climate accounting and action programs, ensuring that organizations can easily manage their carbon credit transactions as part of their comprehensive carbon emissions reduction strategy. Sustainability leaders and those tasked with meeting emissions reduction goals need better information to make decisions on how to shape their sustainability programs. FigBytes helps make an organization’s emissions reduction strategy actionable with data, ensures reporting is an ongoing but effortless process, and makes it easy to show progress to a growing pool of stakeholders. FigBytes also supports...

PORTLAND, ORE.—Vacation club brand WorldMark by Wyndham is launching Planting Seeds, a pilot program that introduces guests staying at WorldMark Portland Waterfront Park to the concept of urban permaculture through interactive workshops and an on-site vertical demo garden. Guests who participate in the free monthly workshop series will be empowered to live more holistically and reduce waste by embracing their surrounding ecosystems to grow their own food, at scale—no matter where it is they call home. To oversee its new Planting Seeds program, WorldMark enlisted the expertise of master regenerative urban farmer Daniel Campbell, owner and operator of Portland’s PDX Farm, who installed a demo garden...

DAWSON, TEXAS—While commercial operations began in late December, Whirlpool Corp. just announced a formal ribbon cutting at the Limestone Wind wind farm in Dawson Texas, where 53MW of clean energy from the 88 turbines on site will be supporting the company’s journey towards achieving net-zero targets that the company first announced in 2021. The ribbon cutting for Limestone Wind is the culmination of a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with expected production of approximately 200,000 MWh/year, the second VPPA for Whirlpool Corp. With the addition of this project, Whirlpool Corp. can now match 100 percent of its nine U.S. plant’s...

HOLLYWOOD, FLA.—Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming announced the release of its 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility Report: Fifty Years Forward. Social purpose has propelled Hard Rock since its inception in 1971, guided by its founding mottos: Love All-Serve All, All Is One, Save The Planet, and Take Time To Be Kind. “Our brand mottos have shaped who we are as a brand for the past 50 years while setting the foundation of our future,” said Paul Pellizzari, Vice President of Global Social Responsibility at Hard Rock International. “Today, Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming operate 250+ cafes, hotels and casinos spanning...

MASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE, KENYA—JW Marriott, part of Marriott Bonvoy’s global portfolio of 30 hotel brands, announced the opening of JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge, marking the company’s highly anticipated debut in the luxury safari segment. Sitting within the Masai Mara National Reserve in Southwestern Kenya, one of Africa’s most renowned wildlife and wilderness conservation regions, the lodge is a sophisticated sanctuary from which to discover animals and vistas in harmony. Guided game drives offer guests the opportunity to observe the “Big Five” that Masai Mara is home to, including lions, leopards, buffalos, rhinoceros, and elephants. Between June and September,...

LOUISVILLE, KY.—Schneider Electric, a global leader in the digital transformation of energy management and sustainability, has been chosen by Choice Hotels International, one of the largest and most successful lodging franchisors in the world, to provide AI-assisted technology to help more than 6,000 franchisees in the United States autonomously track and manage energy consumption and sustainability data. Schneider Electric will equip the company with EcoStruxure Resource Advisor, Schneider Electric’s AI-assisted, cloud-based solution for managing enterprise-wide energy and sustainability data. The platform will deliver preconfigured dashboards that enable hotels to automatically track their energy and water consumption while calculating their emissions....

LONDON—The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Hospitality and Tourism Task Force announced its founding members and new partnerships, which includes 14 global hospitality companies and three leading sustainability and inter-governmental development organizations. The Task Force will drive more sustainable actions in the sector. Founding members include: Glenn Mandziuk, CEO of the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance and Co-chair of Sustainable Markets Initiative Hospitality and Tourism Task Force; Xenia zu Hohenlohe, Co-founding Partner of the Considerate Group and Co-chair of Sustainable Markets Initiative Hospitality and Tourism; Keith Barr, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts; Sebastien Bazin, CEO of Accor; Jorg Bockler, CEO of Dorint Hotels...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Travel Association launched a first-of-its-kind initiative, JourneyToClean.com, to share the collective story of the U.S. travel industry’s bold vision for achieving greater sustainability. The initiative consists of more than 100 examples of sustainable travel practices from a diverse cross-section of more than 50 travel businesses. “The travel industry embraces sustainability initiatives and business practices because it is good for the planet and it’s good for business,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman. “Travelers and businesses alike are demanding more sustainable options, and our industry is evolving to meet the needs of travelers now and for...