Cleanlink News February 13 2009
Chicago Hosts More Green Hotels Than Any Other U.S. City
As seen in Medill Reports Chicago.
The Windy City is the greenest city when it comes to hotels. Chicago has more than three times the number of green hotels than any other city in the U.S. under a national rating system called Green Seal. Hotels in Portland, Ore., came in at a distant second.
The third-party organization, Green Seal, creates environmental guidelines and rates and certifies hotels based on the environmentally sustainable practices the hotel has implemented. Green Seal also certifies other business sectors and products, ranging from cleaning products to fleet vehicle maintenance.
The organization decided to target the hotel industry because it is “an area of high impact for the environment with a lot of waste, a lot of electricity use and a lot of water waste,” said Linda Chipperfield, vice president of marketing at Green Seal.
Green Seal’s lodging standard aims to reduce waste and hazardous materials in hotels, while increasing energy and water efficiency, conservation and recycling efforts. Based on the criteria it meets, a hotel can achieve either a bronze, silver or gold rating.
Chicago currently has 13 Green Seal certified hotels, five at the silver level and eight at the bronze level. Twelve other Chicago hotels have been audited by Green Seal and are in the process of becoming certified. The push to green Chicago’s hotels came from Mayor Daley in 2007 with a Green Hotels Initiative launched as part of the city's Climate Action Plan.
“We had no idea that the hotel industry in Chicago would respond so well to our challenge,” said Hahn Pham, who manages Chicago’s Green Hotels Initiative. “It’s fabulous to see them come on board.”
According to the Chicago Department of Environment, a 300-room hotel switching to a bath tissue with 100 percent post-consumer recycled content would save approximately 4 tons of virgin paper, 48 trees, 16,400 kilowatt-hours of electricity, 28,000 gallons of water and 240 pounds of air pollutants annually.
But becoming Green Seal certified benefits the hotels, as well as Mother Earth. Less waste and energy efficiency also reduce cost.
Nabil Mouyabed, general manager of the Hotel Monaco, notes that efficiency and cost savings go hand in hand. The Green Seal silver-rated Monaco purchases all of its biodegradable, non-toxic cleaning products in bulk from Sierra Environmental.
The cleaning products arrive in large containers and are then diluted with water and placed into spray bottles. The reduction in materials translated into a savings of somewhere between $20,000 to $30,000 the first year the Monaco made the switch, Mouyabed said.
“There’s two wins on that front. We’re using a better product and we’re not harming our housekeepers,” said Mouyabed.
Steve Karowski, director of engineering at the Intercontinental Hotel , certified silver under Green Seal, agrees. He said that the “added bonus” of being Green Seal certified is that “we’re not as wasteful and we save a lot of money.”
Karwoski said the Intercontinental is very mindful of the amount of waste it creates and has implemented “a pretty extensive recycling program.” The hotel regularly sends its staff to training sessions on recycling: on how to sort and separate and how to keep the hotel’s efforts on track. The Intercontinental also receives detailed reports from waste and recycler hauler, Allied Waste, on the percentage of waste that ends up in landfills versus how much is recycled.
“It’s the right thing to do for the environment,” said Karwoski.
And the green savings reap other benefits.
Patrick Aversa, director of sales at the Talbott Hotel, said that he's seen an increase in business because of the hotel’s “green efforts.”
The Talbott, which achieved a silver Green Seal certification in October, outfits each of its 149 guest rooms with energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, uses eco-friendly cleaning products and purchases wind power credits to offset its emissions.
Green Seal requires all of its certified hotels to undergo a sustainable practices annual audit. While a silver-rated hotel may either advance to a gold rating or remain at a silver level at the time of the second audit, a bronze hotel must advance to a silver rating during the second year to remain in the Green Seal program.
“Our focus in ’09 is to push the bronze hotels to get silver, and the silver to get gold,” Pham said.
“Chicago’s progress with green hotels has been very impressive,” Chipperfield said. “But this is a good, healthy competition. Everyone wants to be known as the greenest city.”
