Green blackmail is becoming one way of getting people's attention about environmental issues. When taken far enough -- or too far -- it becomes environmental terrorism. Will you take environmental steps on your own, or will you wait until either green blackmail or government regulations force you?

On a bigger scale I'm hearing about construction projects that are being slowed or stopped through blackmail, often union-based blackmail. It feels that the unions are exploiting environmental issues and concerns to get project labor agreements (PLAs) signed so that only union members will be hired for the project. If the PLA isn't signed the threat is to tie the project up for years with environmental lawsuits.

In one case the hotel/convention center pulled out, rather than signing the PLA or dealing with the environmental charges; this cost the city thousands of new jobs. In another case the city council saw through the attempted blackmail and rejected the environmental complaints, and the project continued. In yet another case the energy company met to discuss the environmental problems and ended up signing the PLA, at which time the environmental problems were resolved.

I have been saying for years that we're better off taking action to protect the environment from both daily operations and development before the government steps in to regulate that action for us. I think financial incentives would be a good way to get the government involved in our directing our own environmental actions, but that's about the extent I think the government should get involved.

Get used to green blackmail and decide if you'll work with the directives being passed down or not. I hope that's the extent of green blackmail you experience.

And being who I am, a proponent of green hospitality operations, I have to once again urge you forward into greening your hospitality venue. Recycle. Conserve water and energy. Serve locally grown, organic foods and compost the waste. Avoid herbicides and pesticides, as well as scented products. And tell your guests and prospective guests what you are doing so they can choose you from the crowd of hospitality choices they face.

Sustainable development is an up-and-coming concept in the hospitality industry. It's been around for awhile now, but is getting more traction all the time. A shopping mall in Boulder, Colorado, is an interesting case study in the environmental issues of renovations. How much can building materials be recycled, reused and donated?

During the demolition phase of the project in which more than 500,000 square feet of building was torn down, 82 percent of it was diverted from the landfill and reused by the new project and others in their projects. One way some of the building materials were removed from the site was through selling it. As much as possible was sold, helping defray the cost of the project. Artwork, fixtures and equipment were donated to various non-profit groups. Two thousand tons of steel were recycled. That's a lot of material not dumped in the landfill. What a savings for everyone involved!

One requirement of the new development was to be raised above the flood plain. Two hundred thousand cubic yards were needed to accomplish that. Half of that fill came from recycled concrete from the Crossroads Mall. The concrete was ground and used as back fill. The balance of the fill was trucked in from a nearby quarry. Parts of the old structure were left in place to be used as parking, and the land fill went around and over that to create new, higher ground for the new project.

Considerations in the construction of the new shopping center included transportation issues, fresh air concerns, safety, and commerce and lifestyle. Mass transit is encouraged for people coming to this new center, but seven and a half acres of parking allow fro more than 800 cars. And priority parking is available for those in fuel-efficient, eco-friendly cars. Community was the focus of the newly created space; shop and play in a comfortable neighborhood with ample fresh air and sunshine.

However, one consideration I think was overlooked, or ignored, was Community. Sustainable development and living incoroprate one's relationship with the community, something Crossroads had done but Twenty Ninth Street isn't -- at least in the same way. Crossroads had become the exercise haven for many people who wanted to walk or run, but didn't want to have to struggle with the weather or uneven surfaces found outdoors. That community ritual was demolished, along with the Mall, leaving a void many of Boulder's citizens. That, in my mind, is a huge demerit for the sustainable lessons to be learned here.

The needs of hospitality venues aren't too different from that of a shopping mall. You too can create your perfect space and keep a sustainable design and approach. From the sustainable architecture and design to the sustainable tourism you engender from your attitudes and approach, you can create a fabulous and comfortable property.

Take the above ideas, add concern for interior air quality, renewable energy, water and energy conservation, and sustainable FF&E, and you will have created a cost effective, comfortable location that will attract loyal guests.

The developers saved money and the planet with their approach to the demolition of Crossroads Mall and the construction of Twenty Ninth Street. Hospitality venues -- restaurants, hotels, spas, golf courses and ski areas, and even cruise lines -- would benefit from this kind of approach. And the planet would thrive better too. Take an EconomicallySound approach to your project and profit.

The environment is a hot topic these days. My focus is on green hospitality -- hotels, restaurants, cruise ships, golf courses, and spas being examples. Through innovation, environmental problems can be resolved, money saved and jobs created. Environmental innovation leads to jobs of all kinds, even environmental jobs. Environmentally friendly hotels can lead the way in greening of the hospitality industry.

Recently I had dinner with several NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers. The conversation bounced among topics like politics, space, sports, the environment, weather, and the internet. It was an invigorating conversation, or set of conversations.

And the innovations from the space program that help the environmental movement, especially as it applies to the hospitality industry, include improved insulation, air and water purification systems, sewage treatment, solar energy, noise abatement, energy saving air conditioning, wireless communications, environmentally friendly lubricants, and electric cars. The products themselves are valuable, but the job creation that came with them is also an important aspect to recognize.

Combining this conversation with the innovations I read about in Green to Gold (reviewed here at ECOnomically Sound) by Daniel C Esty and Andrew S Winston, awakened in me the realization that the green movement could be the next space program, as far as contributions to society and job creation. I have found yet another great reason for the hospitality to green its operations: improve the economy through job creation. But innovation is more than job creation.

Innovation, as defined in Green to Gold , is "bringing imagination to bear to solve problems and respond to human needs. According to the authors, it lies at the heart of success; my augmentation of that thought is it's the key to success in greening the hospitality industry. Being innovative will save more money in the long run than regulation, which is a common approach when people don't take action on their own.

Let me list just a few of the improvements and innovations that have come from businesses striving for better and/or cleaner approaches to business and the environment, to reduce pollution and save money and resources.

• 3M reduced waste, and thus pollution, in 20 ways and saved $11M over 30 years


• BP (British Petroleum, or Beyond Petroleum) found ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (cost: $20M, savings: $650M)


• DuPont holding its energy use flat, saving it $2B in 10 years


• Herman Miller ecofriendly chairs; low waste and emission products


• Sun Microsystem's energy-saving chip; energy saving in operation and in its cooling demand


• Toyota's hybrid gas-electric car

The kinds of innovations the hospitality industry can be involved in are diverse and numerous.

• increase profit by reducing your use of materials and resources


• push your suppliers to be better environmental stewards in the products they sell and the way those products are packaged


• design your building or renovation to be low impact through design and choices


• develop innovative products to help your guests

Identifying your guests' needs and desires so you can better design products and processes to meet them isn't easy. But effective marketing is part of your success plan in the greening of your operation. The number of ways you can innovate and help create jobs is growing. Be part of the economy's recovery, and save the environment and your financial well-being, too, by being an innovator of green products and procedures for the hospitality industry. It's an ECOnomically Sound way to operate.

AH&LA is taking yet another step towards finalizing their environmentally friendly hotel certification program. Responding to their member survey not only earns money for the National Arbor Day Foundation but also provides valuable information for AHLA's green hotels program and gives the responding member hotel a marketing opportunity. That's turning green to gold!

It sounds as if this survey effort on AHLA's part is creating a win:win for both sides of the equation. AHLA will gather valuable information, it will help them develop a national certification program, and it gives the respondent a chance to be included on AHLA's Green Best Practices website.

Granted AHLA is a bigger entity than I am and their website probably gets lots more traffic than my EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com website, but if your hotel has adopted green actions, feel free to submit it for inclusion (if it's not already there) today!

The more green hotel websites you are on, the better. That's an ECOnomically Sound action.

Environmentally friendly hotels, restaurants and other hospitality venues have tough choices to make in greening their operations. My hybrid SUV taught me more about that than I had been aware before. It's your turn to learn how to think about the best way to help green the hospitality industry.

But anyway, I wanted to share my lessons about balancing my green choices because I think it's a perfect example of what we face daily in living an environmentally active life. Basically I learned you can't get great mileage and drive at high speeds. I know, that's no surprised, but my car has a gauge that shows me just what my average miles per gallon (MPG) is as I drive along. I got to watch as the meter went up and down, almost as the hills went up and down and my speed went up and down. But when you try to maintain a high speed up a steep hill -- heck, any hill -- your MPG drops dramatically. And I found that auto-pilot didn't help the situation and in fact almost made it worse.

It became a game with me to learn how I could maintain my speed and mgp. I learned that feathering the brake activated the regenerator which acted as a brake without wearing out the brake pads; it also regenerated the battery which would give me more battery power along the way. I further learned that dropping from 80 to 70 miles per hour (MPH) added about 3 MPG to my mileage.

As I drove along, playing my balancing game, I again realized that life is just like driving my car because we are always having to choose between greener choices and "getting places". For example, what's the best flooring? All flooring choices have environmental impacts that include cutting trees (loosing the oxygen generation provided by trees, the CO2 "eating" action of the trees, the energy and water needed to convert the tree into flooring, the transportation from the forest to the manufacturer to the distributor to you, and of course the energy of installing the wood floor), mining stone (with its associated environmental components in manufacturing it to flooring and distribution), weaving carpet, pouring concrete, and manufacturing linoleum or vinyl (with very different environmental impacts). And when you factor the longevity of the flooring into your choice you change the environmental impact yet again. When you take the impact on air quality inside the building into acc
ount, you again have a different value for the environmental impact that one choice makes.

Now take that choice and run the same sort of analysis on it for walls, furniture, finishes, driveways, landscaping, fixtures and equipment, and you have lots of balancing acts to balance. It's important to know what your ultimate environmental goal is so you can better balance your decisions.

See what a fun game my driving provided to me? And for my trip I had to balance my MPG with getting to my destination for my first appointment, and getting enough sleep along the way. All three elements in my decision were important. At different times one weighed more heavily in my decision than the others. I ultimately settled on driving 70 MPH, getting 6 hours of sleep, and getting to town early so we could see the Alamo before our meetings started.

What will your final decision be with each green action you want to take? If you take on the challenge as a game you'll have more fun with it and probably make a better decision in the long run. You just won't have a MPG meter and clock to help you with a visual aids in making your decisions.

Are green hotels making a difference and are they really green? This running discussion ties in nicely with my article on greenwashing in the hospitality industry published here in early April, 2008. Greenwashing can be an effort to obfuscate one's lack of green action, or it can be to promote some hidden agenda. Either way, when your environmental actions aren't above board, they do an injustice to those who are serious about making an environmental difference.

My concern about the article was that a good premise -- traveling to distant locations, even if they are touted as green, isn't ecologically sound -- morphed it into bashing my site, and sites like it. My site isn't perfect -- and of course no listing site is. I feel that even the organizations that certify hotels miss the boat in lots of ways. But we all are trying, and that's where you start any change -- in action.

When Heidi started early in her reply with "The term 'guilt' was merely used to spark discussion" I felt she was missing my point. I personally like the challenge of the word "guilt". I don't know how the other responders reacted to the word, but I got the sense several of them didn't react to the word "guilt" so much as the concept of dissing efforts at trying to identify green hotels. At least in her reply she acknowledged what a challenge it is to compile a list of green hotels because information is so sparse about them.

Talking about easing our guilt with our various efforts is good. Do we buy green energy credits yet drive a large gas-hog car anyway, or do we buy those credits and drive a gas-conserving car? Do we use energy conserving appliances yet let the water run "endlessly", or do we conserve water through our appliance choice and actions? And do we travel "the world" staying at green hotels or non-green hotels? Every action helps, even if only a little.

So the reply starts with what her premise was -- "flying to remote locations to stay in ecolodges and whether we want to admit it or not, flying long distances does in fact raise climate change issues, period." Great start to an article. And good fodder for discussion about the challenges of being green and the choices we have to make every day. But then she slips right back into voicing her concerns about EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com (EFH) with "What concerned me about the site is that it may be unintentionally misleading." And again I challenge her on her research. It seems she hasn't read the "About Us" link that talks about the intentions and challenges of this site, yet she voices concern about it being misleading.

More importantly, the premise of EFH has nothing to do with the premise of her article. It's starting to feel the article's title is merely a hook to get people to read her blog about how off-base EFH is and how wonderful other sites are. I have to question her intentions here, as well as her research and analysis.

She doesn't seem to like the green actions, or definitions of them, that we are using to identify how green a hotel is. We perfectly understand the daily choices we are faced with give us a continuum of options; some are greener than others but hopefully the at the end of the day the balance is greener than browner. We are hoping to spur people into action and into travelling with greater awareness.

Starting with her argument about our inclusion of Environmental Cleaning, which covers avoiding herbicides and pesticides too, she argues "An example is the use of cleaning chemicals which is an enormously complex area where rigorous standards are the only credible route to go." and continues with "I know there are no 'environmentally friendly chemicals' although some do have a better profile than others." We don't use the term chemicals in our description of environmental cleaning because we recognize there are lots of ways to clean and do so with environmental stewardship.

I've interacted with scientists on this subject too and have learned that some of the "bugs" we are trying to kill with our cleaning supplies can't be killed that way, and that some of the old fashioned approaches ultimately work as well for our basic cleaning needs as the harsh chemicals I campaign against. Being Green Seal certified isn't necessarily the answer because of the perfumes I've experienced in some of those products -- negatively impacting air quality. She's again jumped to conclusions about our intention based on her biases, not on her research. This is starting to get old, and we're not even done yet!

EFH has the primary focus of being for travelers who care about staying in green hotels. If a guest submits a hotel for inclusion we anticipate the information they share covers only the things they can see, not any back-of-house actions. But if a hotel submits itself, then we hope they know about their back-of-house actions. That accounts for some of the thin information we have -- guest vs hotel submitted properties. The lack of information hotels share about their green actions on their websites is another stumbling block in sharing complete and accurate information.

Guests can tell a lot about a hotel's green actions from the areas they experience. If a hotel is using perfumed cleaning supplies in the guestrooms or in the laundry, a chemically sensitive guest will know that. And we at EFH anticipate they'll report that when they submit a hotel for inclusion or review a hotel they found on the site. We share what we can, hoping it will make a difference to someone.

Heidi, if you know of shortcomings in our list of green hotels, why haven't you submitted information so we can update those hotels' listings? That's being a responsible green citizen. Wagging your finger saying you know something we don't know isn't helpful at all. That approach contributes to greenwashing in untold ways. We know we don't have sufficient data on many hotels and that some hotels are greenwashing. But it's up to the traveling public to fill us in to make the database more accurate. Taunting anyone trying to do a good deed just isn't helpful.

I appreciate the chance to talk about the greening of the hospitality industry. Though Heidi says she's just blogging and not a journalist, she's undermining her valuable point of view by blindly pointing fingers. If after she's really looked at EFH and disagrees with its premise, fine. But to say it's not as good as programs she has deemed to be valuable, without seemingly knowing much about any of the programs, smacks of prejudice and elitism. How can you really be a viable part of "the greenwash brigade" if you aren't researching your topic carefully? Are all of the blog posts on that site unfounded spouting and unresearched rants?

I too blog and voice my opinion, but when I write about something I take it upon myself to do a bit of research to base my opinion on. I don't want to be a Roseanne Roseannadanna or Emily Litella in my blogs. I strive to take an educated stance in my environmental education as I work toward greening the hospitality industry. I want hospitality venues to be Economically Sound in their actions as they weave their way through the myriad choices they face daily.

The hospitality industry is behind the Green Wave; it's not doing enough to develop a sustainable or environmentally sound business approach. In Green to Gold, by Daniel W Esty and Andrew S Winston, you can discover what your business can do to develop an environmental culture and green program. Become a WaveRider in the hospitality industry.

The first few chapters of this book highlight how environmental challenges have become an integral part of the business landscape. They introduce the Green Wave and how it's sweeping the business world and the present importance of making environmental thinking a core business strategy. Smart companies get ahead of the Green Wave to lower their financial and operating risk -- a step the hospitality industry could benefit from in today's challenging times.

Implementing environmental programs is done partially because it's the right thing. A benefit of doing the right thing is it attracts the best people -- employees, guests and vendors. You can't go wrong when you surround yourselves with the best people. The best people can help further your cause, improve your business and ultimately make you more money.

By folding environmental concerns into your myriad operational areas, your best people can:
- introduce products that help guests with their environmental problems, like guestrooms for chemically sensitive or allergy-prone people, creating a new eco-market space as a consequence.
- select suppliers who have strong environmental standards and encourage others to adopt environmental stewardship as their style
- measure your consumption so you can track your progress
- partner with others to learn about goal setting, incentives, training and tools so all employees are engaged in the vision

50 top WaveRiders (companies riding the Green Wave) are listed in the book. Not one of them is from the hospitality industry. Maybe that's because individually a hospitality business isn't large enough to make a perceptible difference, but as a combined group it's a huge force to be reckoned with, a force that could turn the Green Wave into a tsunami. Many Wave Riders voice opinions along the line of successful business and good citizenship are intertwined. It's past time for the hospitality industry as a whole to become a good citizen; there are lots of individual hospitality businesses that are.

The clear how-to advice and concrete examples, illustrated by companies like GE, WalMart, Toyota, Shell and BP, and Nike, are valuable even to the hospitality industry. Read how these companies, and others too, create strong brands, increase revenues, cut costs, reduce risk, and generate lasting value by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. These are the very things the hospitality industry can benefit from as well.

One note to make is that being green, or environmentally sensitive and active, isn't enough of an edge over the competition, but it's one important element in honing your competitive edge. The authors guide their readers through discussions of regulatory restrictions, resource shortages, and increasing pressure from customers and even stakeholders for companies to become more environmentally active and sustainable in their operations and attitudes. The discussion goes from talking about the problem through what you can do to take responsibility and how innovation and paradigm shifts need to take place before long-term changes can be attained.

But be aware that environmental initiatives can fail. Understanding why that happens will, according to the authors, help an environmental program thrive. The big failings in developing a thriving environmental program include:
* focusing on the wrong issues
* misunderstanding your marketplace
* not integrating environmental thinking into the workplace
* underestimating customer/guest reactions to green products (or services)
These issues are in addition to the usual short comings like poor planning, lack of commitment, and putting the wrong people in the key positions. According to Esty and Winston, "Environmental initiatives take no less work than other projects. And they fail just as often." Additionally they say, "sound environmental strategy can be very rewarding."

But even putting yourself on a sustainable path won't fix everything, not without a huge shift in approach. Even with being green, natural resources will be depleted and pollution will be caused by your company. And not all environmental investment or action will pay off, but by keeping an environmental focus you can keep your competitive edge.

One analogy from the book I especially appreciate is that of comparing our natural resources to our business assets. First Esty and Winston make the point that we live within nature's boundaries. Then they remind us some resources are renewable and some aren't, and those are being tapped daily. Can you imagine depleting your business assets without having even a plan to replenish them? That's what we are doing to nature's resources, depleting them without a plan to renew them or do something else when the resources are gone, or at least not cost effective to "mine" anymore.

I think resource depletion is the biggest flaw of the hospitality industry in regards to environmental abuse. Water and petroleum aren't the only natural resources hotels use extensively, though they are the biggies. Consider construction and decorating materials, and furnishings too. The hospitality industry may not directly cause pollution, but it contributes to it in other areas, the areas where their goods are made, and along the way to delivery. More care needs to be taken with the purchasing of goods to minimize resource depletion.

The authors identify ten environmental issues to watch because of the impact they can have on our lives. They list climate change, energy, water [resource sources and pollution], biodiversity and land use, chemicals and heavy metals, air pollution, waste management, ozone layer depletion, oceans and fisheries, and deforestation. By managing nature's bounty we will minimize our vulnerability to the changes we are facing. Draw upon your creativity to be innovative about ways you can run your business without depleting resources as fast, and maybe even help avoid that depletion. Esty and Winston go into detail about these resource issues, though mostly with industry in mind instead of hospitality. But the bottom line is the same: we all need to be more careful.

If you go along with the notion these ten environmental issues need to be watched, your next step is to realize you have up- and down-stream paths to observe and act on to make a difference to your industry. By conducting an audit of your role in these ten issues (the authors refer to this as an AUDIO analysis to reflect the elements of your audit: Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues and Opportunities) you'll figure out what you can do to make a difference. You'll determine if it's time to either change vendors to those who are ahead of the curve and can help lead you to more environmental products, or give your present vendors the opportunity to comply with your new program. You'll see the changes you can make it your selections of furnishings and finishes. Even the relationship you have with your guests will take on a new tone as you make them partners in your green-to-gold play. You'll be able to start thinking about your role in the environment in a new way and create a program for your hospitality venue that will reduce your footprint on the planet. Being proactive will help you stay ahead of regulations that will come along.

I've long met resistance to my statement that the hospitality industry will be hit with regulations at some point, as have most other industries. Esty and Winston make a case for beating the competition on regulatory compliance. They talk about how it costs more to comply with regulations than most business leaders think. And most business leaders underestimate their capacity for innovation. I think that's particularly true in the hospitality industry. Using the AUDIO analysis as mentioned above, hospitality industry leaders will be able to figure out solutions. They might be cost-effective ways to beat the issue that will ultimately be regulated, or they'll be able to comply with existing regulations in way that cut costs, making them more competitive and give them an "Eco-Advantage". Cutting costs without cutting services or hospitality is a winning strategy for a hospitality business.

The next several chapters of the book lay out strategies for building an "Eco-Advantage". The authors guide the readers in developing their green-to-gold plays by managing the downside and building the upside. Managing the downside involves lowering your costs through improved resource productivity, cut environmental costs and regulatory burden, and lowering costs up and downstream, and by managing environmentally driven business risks. Building the upside involves building revenues through meeting your guests' environmental needs, positioning yourself to garner guest loyalty on your green attributes, and promoting your innovations and product breakthroughs, and harnessing your intangibles by building your corporate reputation, an intangible asset.

One issue briefly addressed in the book that applies to the hospitality industry is not to expect a price premium because you are developing a green program. Travelers around the world are cynical about why they are paying more for a green guestroom, for example, when the hotel is often saving money with the green actions. Esty and Winston point out that increasing your volume is a better way to increased profit than raising prices. Address the concern that being a green hotel will mean lowered quality and service and promote why that's not the case for you. Part of building guest loyalty is treating your guests well, and raising the price because you are green isn't a good move in building that loyalty.

As the authors proceed through their case for turning green to gold they present a few chapters on what various green businesses, WaveRidiers, do. Developing an "Eco-Advantage" mindset is the first step in your journey to being a successful green business. The steps outlined and discussed in the book are:

1. look at the forest, not the trees: look at the long-term for your business decisions, like one or two generations


2. start at the top: the commitment must start at the highest level for it to be a successful program


3. adopt the Apollo 13 principle -- "no" is not an option: give your green team seemingly impossible goals, ones that reflect an ambitious environmental vision, and then step back and let them innovate to make it happen


4. recognize that feelings are facts: understanding this reality is vital to getting into the right mindset to create your green program, your "Eco-Advantage"

Tracking your environmental impact is an important aspect of establishing your game plan. What's not measured won't change. Find out how big your environmental footprint is so you can know how much needs to change and to measure your successes along the way. Again, the authors give you a tool to guide your "eco-tracking", as they call it. Key environmental metrics include:

• energy: total used and renewable energy bought or used


• water: total used and water pollution


• air: greenhouse gas emissions, release of heavy metals and toxic chemicals, and emission of particulates


• waste: solid, recycled, and hazardous


• compliance: notices of violations and fines or paid penalites

Redesigning your world is another discussion in Green To Gold that might shake you up a bit. They bring in the book (see my Cradle to Cradle book review:, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, because they want their readers to realize a paradigm shift needs to take place to make a true difference in the preservation of the planet and it's natural resources. The Cradle to Cradle authors argue that we need to look at environmental issues in a new way. They address why being "less bad" is no good and we need to develop new ways of thinking. Redesigning products and processes is the way to make real environmental gains. The hospitality industry is large enough it can make a huge impact in this area.

Cradle to Cradle urges people to go beyond reduce/reuse/recycle and add redesign and reimagine to their hierarchy of environmental action. Esty and Winston argue that innovation is critical to the 21st century competitive advantage. Just as it's cheaper to reduce than to reuse, recycle and throw things away, so it is more profitable to redesign and reimagine.

Several sustainability and environmental visionaries equate waste to food, based on nature's closed loop system. In the business loop, waste equals cost. That right there is the argument for rethinking hospitality operations. Reduce and recycle waste water, energy, bathroom amenities, newspapers, and food. Reuse materials as much as possible. Reduce air pollutants through the finishes and furnishings you select. These things are part of what reduces your environmental footprint and saves money.

Inspiring and creating an "Eco-Advantage" culture is an important step in the success of your environmental program. The book outlines the four basic culture-binding tools necessary for that effort.

1. have a vision, and have it reinforced by goals that stretch your team and staff, maybe even your guests


2. implement practices that fold environmental thinking into every strategic decision


3. create incentives for engaging people and making them accountable for the environmental agenda; encourage people to take ownership for the environmental strategy at an operational level, cross-fertilize your green team between operations and environmental positions, and establish incentives for environmental success based on the clear metrics you are getting


4. communicate with internal and external audiences; this step will really spur you to environmental action

Be careful to not "greenwash" any of your communications -- to staff, team or the public. Don't stretch the truth about what you are doing. Be up front about the efforts that didn't work, or aren't working yet. Being transparent in your communications is a powerful tool to get and keep people behind your efforts. The biggest disservice you can do to yourself and others following in your steps is to try to be something you aren't.

Finally, the last few chapters put it all together to cover why environmental initiatives fail, urging the readers to take action, and creating a strategy for an environmental program. Misunderstanding the market is a step toward failure. That goes both ways: if you don't understand how much your guests want you to be green, and you therefore ignore their wishes -- or worse yet, only pretend to cater to them -- you are set for failure. Just as bad is not understanding what green actions your guests want you to take. Remember, your guests don't want to have quality or service suffer, but they want green -- lodging, food, spas, golf and any other hospitality venue. Be sure to educate your guests as to why you are taking the green steps you are, and not taking others, and then be consistent in your actions. After that, give it to them their way.

Adopting a green action plan isn't enough for your success. Don't pitch only the green steps you are taking. Be sure to talk about the other benefits you have to offer your guests, tying your green actions in with them. Your green action plan is like eating right for better health and longevity; it may not eliminate every risk, but they both go a long way in making for a better life.

Solutions for making your green program a success are pointed to also. The authors remind everyone to walk before running. Start with pilot initiatives, go for the low hanging fruit -- the easy projects. Then take a systematic view of future green projects. Analyze the lifestyle consequences of each new green project so you know what will happen up- and down-stream. Finally, be careful with your forecasting.

And don't fail to tell your story. You'll get more success from your green program by telling your guests about your green steps; don't keep them a secret. Part of enacting a green program is education. Tell your staff and the public about your environmental initiatives. "Eco-Advantage" comes from taking action, and getting credit for it. This is often a huge failing of the hospitality industry. And this failure contributes to the public's cynicism about the little things they see some hotels, for example, do. Share your big picture to educate others about what you are doing and what they can do.

In the near future, no company will be positioned as an industrial leader or with sustainable profitability without factoring environmental issues into its strategy. With careful use of an environmental perspective the hospitality industry can reduce costs and risks. An environmental perspective can also drive upside gains, increase revenues and intangibles that are hard to measure, such as reputation. Green actions that can add real value are finding new market spaces, and servicing guest needs in new ways, while the business continues to do the right thing.

The economy and environment are deeply intertwined. Without careful stewardship, natural resource constraints will impinge on the hospitality industry and those companies that support it. Just as globalization and the internet impact the hospitality industry, so does the environment. An environmental strategy emerges as a critical point of competitive differentiation and success to the hospitality industry. Every company's financial future depends on integrated thinking on the part of the executives. By thinking differently, creating an "Eco-Advantage" mindset, understanding the environmental challenges facing it, and incorporating environmental stewardship into the corporate values and culture, the individual businesses incorporated into the hospitality industry will thrive.

In short, a green wave, a veritable tsunami, is sweeping the business world. It's propelled by two fundamental forces, according to Esty and Winston: environmental stresses, and people who are insisting business take action in response. Are you going to heed these two forces? Is the hospitality industry going to sink or swim?

Green to Gold is an eye opening book. It's well researched and presented. I wish Daniel C Esty and Andrew S Winston would write an article, if not a book, like this one specifically for the hospitality industry so specific examples of what works and what doesn't could be shared with hospitality industry leaders. But at the very least this article is a start in pointing to the value this book offers hospitality industry leaders who want to green their operations and the industry at large.

Being a green hotel or restaurant isn't just a marketing ploy -- not in the long run. Hospitality venues need to avoid green washing to preserve their reputation. If you say you are green, you better be or the traveling public will avoid doing business with you, the opposite of what you are striving for when you announce your green actions.

And then I see some hospitality venues talk about green actions they say they are taking but don't seem to really follow through on. And that's green washing.

Green washing happens with each green wave that comes along: green bathroom paper products, green cleaners, green trash bags, green car rentals and now green hospitality venues. How can consumers determine which are green and which are making hollow claims? That's been the challenge for years, and part of the reason green certification programs have popped up for various consumer goods.

Green certification for hospitality venues is on the way, but it's not here yet. Until it's here and truly established consumers are going to have to rely on directories like:

• EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com


• Green Seal


• Green Globe 21


• Green Restaurant Association


• THEBestGreenHotels.com


• and for more links to green hosptiality and travel resources check the ECOnomicallySound.com article Green Action

And when you find a website that talks about that property's green steps, how do consumers know they can trust what they read? Call the hotel and ask about their actions. Check for participation with green associations. Look for green reviews like at GreenOnTheFly or at EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com.

But if a hospitality property is green washing, that property is doing itself a huge disservice. It won't be long before the traveling public will catch onto the fact the green actions you claim to be taking aren't real or true and your reputation will reflect that dishonesty. Consumers get cynical with green washing companies and talk about them to friends and online. Bad news travels fast.

Green marketing, as with any marketing, needs to reflect what is real. Don't hide what you are doing. In this case, tell all of the wonderful green steps you are taking, and point out the benefits of those green actions. Don't exaggerate what you are doing to avoid the appearance of green washing.

Green washing is bad for business. That's not an ECOnomically Sound business decision.

If you want to be part of the green wave sweeping the nation, and the world, start a green business. And to learn to do that, or to make your existing business greener, check out this new book coming off the press late summer, 2008.

For those interested in reserving their copy now, presales are available at Amazon. And you can learn more about the book at Glenn's site 75GreenBusinesses.com. It looks to be an interesting, stimulating book.

Addendum
Glenn Croston, the author, approached me to add some comments for this book about operating a green B&B. I added some comments, knowing an entire book could be written on that subject alone. When he asked me to read the manuscript before he sent it to the publisher I was hesitant because I didn't think I had anything new to offer. And I thought I was too busy. Hah! I loved what Glenn did with the topic. Time flew as I read the book. It turns out my extensive my environmental background added value to Glenn's book, even though my comments were minor.

As I started reading the book I was looking at the term "Business" in the narrow scope of the word, the way an entrepreneur would see it. I thought the book was going to address the various business fields an entrepreneur could get involved to start their own business. But Glenn is using the term in the broad sense, anything to do with the business from owner to employee. I'm very impressed with the thought and research put into this book. Anyone wanting to be part of the swelling green wave is in luck with this book. Since I think the green wave is really a green tsunami, now is the time for anyone interested in being part of the rebuilding of the economy and having "job security" to buy this book. This can be your first action step in building a greener America.

If you are looking for a hotel that has a sense of place and is green, or at least has eco-awareness, find the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveller and browse their list of 150 hotels in which you'll love to stay.

Since I have a growing list of green hotels I thought I'd be able to come up with a great collection of such properties for them to consider. It turns out they also wanted properties that are larger than 10 guestrooms and aren't a ranch or spa. I ultimately was only able to submit 14 properties from EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com, based on my understanding of what they wanted.

After seeing the list I'm surprised at how many more I could have submitted. Granted, I don't have all of the green information about the hotels on my list, but some they accepted for their article didn't seem green at all, while some were very green. I was surprised to see guest ranches included in the list too. It seems they really wanted properties with a sense of place, and if they had some environmental stewardship that was good.

I was pleased to see how many hotels from my list of green hotels were included in their list of places to stay. It's good for green hotels to get publicity like provided in an article by National Geographic.

There are lots of interesting and beautiful properties included in the article. I'm glad to see a list of properties that have maintained a sense of place, but I'm kind of sad to see what little focus was placed on the environmental aspects. In my experience there are lots of green hotels that exhibit a strong environmental stewardship and maintain a sense of place they could have written about.

With that kind of publicity, being green can be very ECOnomically Sound.

We've all seen it without knowing that's what we are seeing -- dirty drinking glasses in our hotel rooms. An investigative for Fox News Atlanta taped housekeepers washing wine glasses, drinking glasses and coffee mugs in the bathroom sink, not in the kitchen dishwasher.

The hotels they checked out ran the gamut of hotel price and luxury ranges and all of them were found to have housekeepers doing the same thing -- "washing" the glasses in the guestrooms right in the sink. And often the sink wasn't cleaned first. The glassware was cleaned by rinsing, spraying with cleaning solution, or spraying with glass sparkler -- not even soap and water. The housekeepers didn't wash their hands first either. The glasses were usually wiped with the dirty towels in the guestroom, and sometimes the housekeeper was seen wiping her own face with the towel before drying the glassware. The hotel managers refused on-camera interviews to talk about the findings, but later sent notes saying those were unusual cases.

The investigative team talked with various health department officials to learn that not only is this cleaning practice gross and against code, but also it's potentially dangerous because of the wide range of germs and bacteria that can be found on glasses cleaned that way. I'll also point out that often the chemicals used to make the glasses look clean aren't meant for consumption.

Three months later the investigative team inspected other Atlanta-area hotels to see if the hubbub caused by their original report caused hotels to change their cleaning practices. Again the gamut of hotel price nor luxury ranges were investigated -- neither seemed to matter in the results. The investigative team was surprised to learn none of the new hotels were subscribing to health department regulations for cleaning glassware, the problem reported on three months earlier. The team then checked into the original hotels, the hotels targeted in their fall investigation. A couple of the hotels had adopted one-use glasses wrapped in plastic. All of the others stayed with glassware, removed the glasses from the guestrooms, and replaced them with fresh glasses from the cleaning carts. But again, none of the managers were willing to be interviewed on-camera.

Ever since my experience in February 2005 I have refused to use hotel glasses without first washing them. I look on the housekeeping carts to see if there is glassware before being willing to use the glassware provided in my hotel room. I also travel with my own coffee mug and water glass so I always have something to drink out of, if I don't want to wash the glasses in my room. When in doubt, I uses my personal items.

Here are my pointers to you. If you are a hotel owner or operator, retrain your housekeepers to ensure they are following health department regulations by removing the glassware from the guestrooms and taking the dirty glasses to a glass sanitizing station. That may mean taking them all the way to the kitchen. It could mean taking them down the hall to a room designed just for cleaning guestroom glasses and mugs. If you can't provide properly sanitized glassware due to various operation and facility constraints, offer one-use glassware, and make them recyclable.

And let me urge you to have housekeeping run coffee pots and filter holders through such a cleaning cycle too so the coffee made in your guestrooms is the best it can possibly be. Travelers hate using their coffee pot for hot tea only to have the tea taste like coffee. And who wants their coffee pot treated like the glassware -- not washed, and not wiped with clean cloths. Gross!

If you are a traveler I see your options including:

• wash glasses in your guestroom before using them


• ask for fresh glasses and mugs to be brought to your room


• travel with your own glasses and don't bother with what the hotel provides


• look on housekeeping carts to see if they include fresh glassware, giving you an understanding of how safe yours are to use


• talk to management about your concerns with your findings, if you find substandard practices

Fox News Atlanta made a big splash with their investigations. I hope they continue doing spot checks and spearding the word. And I hope other people -- reporters or not -- keep the movement going to get really clean, not just clean looking, glassware in our guestrooms.

It's long past time this guestroom glass grossness ended. And the solution needs to have environmental awareness incorporated. Clean glassware is every traveler's right. This may not be an environmental issue in the same way other issues covered in ECOnomically Sound is, but it is a serious issue that needs to change.

The Better Business Bureau used to help clean up the marketplace from businesses with questionable ethics. Who do you turn to on the internet? I guess the internet. You should be able to unsubscribe from a newsletter when your needs change and you don't want that newsletter anymore, just like you should be able to unsubscribe from catalogues and magazines. When you can't unsubscribe the newsletter, or ezine, becomes like spam -- something you hate getting in your inbox. HotelChatter has become that kind of annoyance to me.

       HotelChatter Video Tours:=20
[their URL]Our videos are kind
of a big deal.       Hotels for Mac Lovers:
[URL/story/2008/2/26/155755/829/hotels/UK_s_City_I
nn_Hotels_Offering_iMacs_in_Every_Room] UK's City Inn Hotels put new iMacs
in every guestroom.       VIP Hotel Reviewer:
[URL/story/2008/2/27/162059/113/hotels/The_Fairmon
t_Copley_Passes_The_Airfare_Watchdog_s_Sniff_Test] George Hobica of
AirfareWatchdog.com gives a shout out to Catie Copley.=20

and another:

ALSO: One& Only Palmilla's Non Deal [URL/story/2008/2/25/72250/6674/hotels/Summer_and_ Hurricane_Season_Deals_at_One_Only_Palmilla], W Africa and Iceland [URL/story/2008/2/26/113429/004/hotels/W_Hotels_No w_Heads_Into_Africa_]        =0D

After subscribing for about a year I realized I wasn't reading it anymore because I had to work too hard to get applicable information, so I unsubscribed. I should say I tried to unsubscribe. Directions to report an erroneous delivery say to reply to the email saying it's been received in error; that didn't work. There used to be a link to report problem deliveries gives you to a page to report a problem, but that didn't accomplish the goal of being removed. And emailing to ask to be removed doesn't work.

Organizations like HotelChatter need to pay attention to customer needs, or they risk being thought of as a problem, rather than a help, to the industry. Ideally there will be several ways subscribers can communicate with you for problems. Publishers need to make sure their systems work so they don't become a problem. In my experience, HotelChatter has become a problem.