It's Not Easy Going Green

In the emerging world of eco-friendly hotels, there are serious disagreements about what it means to go green. But there’s also serious money to be made by those who get it right.

BY ALLISON WEISS ENTREKIN
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JONATHAN BARTLETT

In the family tree of green hotels, Kimpton is definitely the patriarch. In 1981, it became the first company in the industry to put recycling bins in its guest rooms and swap its regular cleaners for non-toxic ones. Today, itemized bills are distributed on request to save paper, and some of the snacks it stocks in the mini bars are organic. For eco-conscious travelers, this all sounds great. But how does it sound to Kimpton execs charged with generating a different kind of green?

Like ka-ching.

Niki Leondakis, president and chief operating officer of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, proudly references a 2011 hotel survey in which 23% of all respondents said they were “very likely” to choose Kimpton Hotels over its competitors because of its eco-friendly characteristics. To her, this validates the 30-year-old vision of the company’s founder, Bill Kimpton. “[He] knew that in order for environmental change to be sustainable and long-lasting, it must make good business sense,” she says. “Running an eco-friendly company is as important today as it ever was, if not more.”

Kimpton isn’t alone. Many hotels that market themselves as green say they have netted more heads in beds as a result. Patricia Griffin, president of Green Hotels Association, says her organization has members who have seen occupancy rates soar as much as 400% after they began showcasing themselves as eco-friendly, even during the current economic downturn.

But don’t assume it’s just one green, happy world. Green Seal, the oldest independent nonprofit environmental-certification organization in the country, scoffs at the notion that all hotels claiming to be green really are. “Having a linen-reuse program in place doesn’t necessarily mean that the hotel is purchasing environmentally preferable cleaning products,” says Mark Petruzzi, Green Seal’s vice president of certification. “And addressing energy use via more efficient equipment doesn’t guarantee that the hotel is reducing trash generation.”

According to Petruzzi, only 124 hotels in the country are currently Green Seal-certified, a process that involves everything from installing low-flow toilets in the bathrooms ($200 each) to donating leftover food to shelters (just a few dollars for gas). For Kimpton’s part, more than 48 of its hotels are Green Seal-certified, and the rest are expected to gain certification this year. The application alone starts at $1,350.

Still, plenty of hoteliers who don’t meet Green Seal’s standards insist they have a right to call their properties green. Destination Hotels and Resorts, a collection of luxury accommodations across the country, does not have any Green Seal-certified lodgings, but each of its full-service properties either has or is working toward Green Key certification, a different third-party ratings system that has less-stringent criteria and costs just $600 to join. Mark Hickey, Destination Hotels and Resorts’ senior vice president of hotel operations, calls the company’s green efforts — like adding organic food to its restaurant menus, putting recycling bins in conference rooms and organizing local “Green Teams” who hold recycling fairs to increase participation by hotel associates in sustainability efforts — central to its corporate culture. Destination Hotels and Resorts markets these initiatives under the banner “Destination Earth,” and according to Hickey, they’ve helped the company lure thousands of new guests — especially ones who are traveling with meetings or conventions. “We have had many group clients choose to stay at our properties because of our commitment to the environment,” he says.

Attracting corporate clients is a significant reason for a hotel to consider going green. According to Petruzzi, many companies want to be able to claim that their meetings and events are environmentally friendly. “Increasingly, government and corporate travel is being encouraged or mandated toward green hotels,” he says. Organizations such as Meeting Professionals International, the Convention Industry Council and the Green Meeting Industry Council all encourage their members to partner with eco-friendly hotels; Meeting Professionals International even has a “sustainable event measurement tool” that allows planners to tally the environmental impact of their meetings so they can easily report it to their superiors. It all adds up to good PR for companies who want to say they hold responsible events — and good occupancy rates for hotels calling themselves green.

Besides attracting more guests, another potential benefit for hotels that go green is reduced energy costs. But are they always rewarded with budgetfriendly bills? It depends who you ask. Both Kimpton and Destination Hotels and Resorts say their energy costs have dropped as a result of their efficiency measures (though neither will say how steep that plunge has been).

But green building designer Neil Chambers of ChambersDesign warns that energy-efficient gadgets don’t always equal lower numbers at the end of the month. “There’s what I call ‘dumb green’ — when people use technology as a means to call themselves green and expect to save money,” says Chambers, who has worked on several hotel projects in New York and South Carolina. He cites hotel developers who erect all-glass buildings in hot climates, then add highefficiency HVAC equipment (to the tune of about $250,000) and expect less-thanaverage energy bills.

Chambers also chides hotels that take a one-green-solution-fits-all approach to energy efficiency. These are the hotels that add the same number of solar panels (around $900 each) to their Chicago properties as they do to their Miami ones, despite the fact that Chicago has less daylight throughout the year, making solar panels less effective. Another example? Hoteliers who create windows in their properties around the country that offer natural heat (prices range from $75 to $125 per square foot), even though “in the South, you’ll cook,” Chambers says. “We live in a society where we want the green answer that works everywhere; if you want to do a smart building, that’s not the approach.”

With all of the costs involved, how is a hotel that isn’t ready to invest a lot of dough supposed to go green? Destination Hotels and Resorts, for one, hasn’t upgraded all of its hotels to new energyefficient equipment yet, instead focusing on operational initiatives (like Green Teams) and changes its guests can easily recognize (like eco-friendly shampoos and soaps in the bathrooms and spas). Those small changes might not sound as legitimate as, say, brand-new HVAC equipment, but Chambers agrees with this approach. “The first thing you should do is invest in green materials that guests can see and wrap their arms around,” he says. There’s no need to undergo an eco-friendly transformation all at once. Destination Hotels and Resorts is only gradually investing in energy-efficient equipment, during property renovations and as new equipment is needed at a hotel. As units are installed, Hickey says it will begin “tracking the return on investment based on this specific change.”

Chances are, the returns will be good — and those ka-chings will be music to his company’s ears.