NATIONAL REPORT—Every new Home2 Suites by Hilton will have them. The Hyatt at Olive 8 in Seattle has them. So does the Nines hotel in Portland, Ore., the Bardessono in Yountville, Calif., the Hotel Terra in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and many other properties. What are they? Dual flush toilets. These highly efficient cousins to standard toilets increasingly are being selected for new construction and renovation projects. Just entering the U.S. lodging market in the last few years, they have been used in Australia, Asia and Europe for more than 20 years and are becoming more common in Canada and...

SEATTLE—The Olive 8 building, a 39-story hotel/condominium building located in downtown Seattle, has officially received LEED Silver from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a first for hotel/condominium buildings in the Seattle area. As the first mixed-use hotel and residential project to be LEED certified in Seattle, Olive 8 has been recognized as a high-performance building that is a responsible and efficient place to live, vacation and work. The cornerstone Hyatt at Olive 8 hotel located within the Olive 8 building is now also one of only 20 hotels in the United States to be officially designated “green” by...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Green Building Council stepped up its commitment to improved building performance with the launch of the Building Performance Initiative, designed to put in place a comprehensive data collection effort from all buildings that have achieved LEED certification; implement an appropriate analysis methodology of that data; and provide feedback to building owners so they have better information with which to address any performance gaps that stem from predicted building performance versus actual performance. This initiative complements the announcement earlier this year that will require ongoing performance data from buildings as part of their certification under the...

KENT, WASH.—The City of Kent, Washington now boasts one of the greenest event centers in the country. The ShoWare Center—a 154,000-square-foot multipurpose arena that is home to the Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team as well as a regional venue for sports, entertainment, concerts and trade shows—was recently awarded LEED Gold-NC (new construction) certification. Designed by Seattle-based LMN, the ShoWare Center is the first newly constructed event center in North America to achieve the LEED Gold rating. “It was exciting to be given the opportunity to help advance sustainable approaches in a new market sector,” says LMN design partner Mark Reddington. “Event...

JACKSONVILLE, FLA.—When the ground gets dry at The Jenks House Bed & Breakfast in Jacksonville, Fla., owners Tom and Ila Rae Merten don’t tap into the city’s water supply. Thanks to a rainwater capture system, they have all the water they need. Installed earlier this summer at the two-guestroom B&B, the system guides water from the garage apartment roof into four 275-gallon storage tanks (1,100 total gallons). The tanks sit on racks in the garage. The roof is 675 square feet in size. One inch of rainfall results in 193 gallons of captured water. With Jacksonville getting an average...

HILLSBORO, ORE.—Caroma, a leader in dual flush toilets, urinals, and stylish bathroom sinks, announces its newest high efficiency toilet (HET): the Sydney Smart back outlet. The Sydney Smart back outlet HET is one of the first back outlet dual flush toilets to be WaterSense labeled, delivering high performance and water savings in the bathroom. The Sydney Smart back outlet features Caroma Smart technology, developed and mastered over the last decade. It delivers a combination of design, water savings, and performance. The Sydney Smart back outlet is dual flush, using 1.28 gallons (4.8 liters) of water per flush (gpf/lpf) for solid...

LAS VEGAS—Dan Bena, who spearheads international sustainability efforts for food and beverage giant PepsiCo, will be the opening keynote speaker for the WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Exposition, October 7 to 9, 2009, in Las Vegas. Bena, PepsiCo’s director of sustainability, health, safety, and environment, will address the conference’s opening session on October 7. PepsiCo’s “Performance with Purpose” operating model has environmental sustainability as a cornerstone and includes minimizing environmental impacts of operations, and extending across supply chains and communities. In 2007, PepsiCo adopted rigorous enterprise-wide global metrics to track its environmental footprint, and was one of the first...

CLEVELAND, OHIO—Hasek Communications, the Cleveland, Ohio-based publisher of Green Lodging News, welcomes Great Eco Solutions as an advertising partner. The company is the maker of Save A Flush, a new dual action flush valve that allows one to convert a standard toilet to a dual flush system. Save A Flush is designed as a universal retrofit for most two piece toilets. It can be installed in 30 minutes or less. The Save A Flush kit contains all new parts for a toilet. All of the moving parts in a toilet will be replaced with new Save A Flush parts....

RIVER FALLS, WIS.—With an eye on not just saving money, but with helping the environment, the operators of the newest hotel in River Falls, Wis., will be using a device called UZLOW on all showers in the 86-room hotel which opened on July 3. “The theme of the town is green and we are certainly working to go along with that,” said Andrew Dyb, general manager of the Best Western Hotel and Suites. Dyb noted that drought has been a problem in the area in recent years and that one of the city’s wells dropped to what municipal officials called...

HILLSBORO, ORE.—Caroma, a leader in high efficiency toilets (HETs), urinals, and bathroom sinks, has increased its number of WaterSense Labeled toilets to 47, more than any manufacturer, according to the company. WaterSense is a partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to make it easy for Americans to save water while protecting the environment. The WaterSense program is designed to identify high performance water efficient toilets that can preserve precious water resources by reducing water use in the home. Being WaterSense labeled means a toilet saves at least 20 percent more water than the current federal standard...