Category: ECO-Chat
AHLA Surveying Hotels for Green Actions
I've heard that AHLA (American Hotel and Lodging Association) is working on a green hotel certification program. It seems to be making progress because I just read about their information gathering efforts. Not only are they surveying their 9,500-ish members, but also they are donating money to a green cause in exchange for the returned surveys. Their adopted green cause is the National Arbor Day Foundation, a worthy organization.
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!
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Debating the Value of Green Hotels
My friend Glenn Hassek, publisher of Green Lodging News, a weekly ezine about the green hotel industry, sent me the link to an article about green travel and greenwashing in the hospitality industry. The title of the article was "Does Green Travel Offset Emissions.... or Just Your Guilt?" and had some interesting points to make. However, I also felt the author was jabbing at green efforts, starting with my green hotels website, without reading about the purpose of the site or talking to me.
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.
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Are You Green Washing?
As a hospitality venue are your communications to your staff and the public fact or fiction? Are you "green marketing" or "green washing"?
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.
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75 Green Businesses -- A Book
A new book on being a green entrepreneur is coming off the press in August. Glenn Croston has written 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference to help spur more activity in the environmental aspects of business. He recognizes the environmental movement is growing and has taken action to help it grow more: he's urging people to start green businesses.
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.
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Hotel Chatterbox
An associate mentioned to me that he gets lots of great environmental leads from a website and newsletter called HotelChatter. Since I like to scour lots of sources for my environmental news and ideas for articles, I added the newsletter to my collection of emails.
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.
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Stanley Selengut's Award for Sustainable Hotel Devolepment
I love seeing a green hospitality pioneer receiving more than press recognition by getting an actual award! Stanley Selengut, the father of sustainable resort development, was awarded the ISHC (International Society of Hospitality Consultants) Pioneer Award at the 2008 ALIS (American Lodging Investment Summit) Conference in Los Angeles in January for his contribution to the greening of the hospitality industry.
The greening of the hospitality industry got another boost in January when Stanley Selengut was awarded the ISHC Pioneer Award for his contributions to the hotel industry. He has long been an environmental activist, developing several environmentally friendly hotels in the Virgin Islands. He also teaches others about his environmental convictions and actions, guiding others to the necessity of recycling and reducing waste.
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Not in My Backyard
Nobody wants to live at the dump. We haul our trash away where it can be burned, buried and otherwise disposed of and gotten out of lives. Trash is fine, as long as it's not in my backyard, seems to be the prevailing attitude in industrial societies. Out of sight, out of mind. Except for the people who are the lucky recipients of your trash.
The hospitality industry needs to get with the program. Filling a dump so we don't have to reduce our resource consumption is an attitude that needs to change. Recycling what we can't reduce is good, but we have to reduce our consumption patterns. Water and energy conservation are vital for our financial benefit and our planet. Waste management starts with reducing the need to manage it and then recycling what we can't reduce. Environmental issues vary around the world, but it boils down to treating the planet as you would your own backyard.
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Natural Pest Control
Natural pest control techniques are better for the humans who deal with the techniques than those made from poisonous chemicals, while at the same time being effective in eliminating pests. Natural pest controls don't pollute air and water, as chemical ones do.
Have you found non-chemical approaches to pest control? I have found that often the natural approaches are as affective, if not more so, than harsh chemicals. I talk about the impact on the people who make chemical pest control products in my article on natural pest control.
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Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants Practice What They Preach
It seems to take a bold attitude for a hotel to take an environmental stance by addressing the environmental issues that face our world, and especially the hospitality industry, today. Kimpton hotels and restaurants has done just that. This isn't the only, or first, hotel chain to reduce environmental pollution, but it's making a lot of noise about it. That kind of environmental education for the public, and to other hoteliers and restaurateurs, is important.
The Kimpton family of hotels and restaurants has adopted an environmental philosophy. This is just one more bit of evidence to show that environmentally friendly doesn't have to mean bare-bones travel -- it can mean first class travel.
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Why Don' t Green Hospitality Properties Advertise That Fact?
Environmental stances and issuess are a corporate social responsibility in the hospitality industry. Making the decision to be environmentally friendly, to conserve water and energy and to recycle, is wonderful. Taking the steps to accomplish those goals is even better. Telling the world why you are tackling environmental pollution and increasing your environmental protection through your green program, is just as important a step.
I've been doing lots of research lately on green hospitality properties, getting ready for my new pages on ECOnomically Sound, and have noticed that many of them don't promote their green-ness. I just don't understand why someone would go through the time and effort to get certified and then not shout it from their roof top.
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