Monday, August 04, 2008
Green Weenies: Will Green Hotels Ever Come of Age?
Most European hotels now have card keys that turn off the power in the room when you leave. Most Americans won’t accept them, because the A/C might take a few minutes to kick in, so the hotel leaves on the A/C all day for an empty room for fear of losing a guest. This might be a problem during the few summer months, but what about rest of the year? What will it take for hotels to put blue recycling containers in every room and compost their food waste, among a few mildly responsible measures? Other than the obvious ploy of not washing the sheets (at your option) for a multi-day stay (which saves water but also a lot of money for the hotel), what will it take to get the hotel industry to adopt green construction and operations standards? Consumer demand and economics are the obvious answers. If green hotels start showing higher occupancies and the cost of energy keeps going higher, we may start to see this nascent trend accelerate. But for right now, I wouldn’t bet on it happening very fast, because of the lack of vision and any sense of social or environmental responsibility in the lodging industry. The only thing that might accelerate change is if corporate travel departments and meeting planners start demanding LEED or Energy Star certification for hotels they patronize; that will be a message much harder to ignore.
Posted by Jerry on 08/04/2008 at 10:21 AM
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