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February 08, 2007
Environmental Issues Ignored
Wasteful business practices not only harm the company, but often can also harm the environment. Water conservation, environmentally friendly cleaning products, recycling, energy conservation -- they are all actions that can save money and the environment. These actions help define your public relations, and anyone can use good PR over bad PR. Greening of the hospitality industry is a growing movement, hotels and restaurants that adopt environmental actions are ahead of the game in both attracting and retaining guests, and saving money as well as the environment.
I travel a bit in my line of work. I tend to witness some awareness of environmental issues by every hotel and many restaurants. Until this weekend. I stayed in a hotel that didn't even pretend to care about the environment!
I'm not saying that the notices about conserving water and energy aren't real. I do recognize though that often it's as much a money-saving action as an environmental action. And I don't care; conserving is conserving, as far as I'm concerned. But this hotel, in a desert environment, didn't have one notice about conserving water, or energy. There was no note about reusing sheets or towels, much less about how precious water is and to pleases be conserving of it. To make matters worse, the sink dripped, almost streamed, the entire time we were at the hotel. What a huge waste of water. I can't help but wonder how this recently renovated hotel can pay its water bills.
To compound the environmental problem of wasting water, there weren't any compact fluorescent light bulbs in any of our guestroom lights, much less in the halls or common areas. We had to turn the refrigerator off to keep the compressor from waking us during the night, an action that saved the hotel money by conserving energy.
And then there was the Styrofoam; I can't abide it, in case you'd missed that in any of my other posts. We had Styrofoam coffee cups in our rooms, a forewarning of what we would experience of at breakfast. Indeed, the breakfast of white bread and diluted orange drink was served with Styrofoam. Since I travel with my own coffee cup I was able to drink coffee, and my hard boiled egg was fine on a napkin; no Styrofoam for me! Bagasse (sugar cane) products are so much better for the environment, they should be used in more locations.
The stench of chlorine permeated the air throughout the hotel. I never figured out if the odor was from the pool or from cleaning efforts. Chlorine is a chemical I have an intense sensitivity to, so it took me awhile to air out my room so I could sleep, though not as well as I'm accustomed. At least we weren't given a newspaper at our door in the morning (if we needed a newspaper we could have used the common one in the lobby or breakfast room, or bought our own)!
Other minor details the hotel over looked for guest comfort and environmental awareness were that we had poly-cotton sheets and towels, which were very rough and uncomfortable. Individual soaps and shampoos, which are a resource waste, were provided at the shower and sink. At least the guestroom had individual climate control to conserve energy.
I was appalled at the lack of awareness and environmental action this hotel displayed. It's been a long time since I've seen such obliviousness to environmental issues as I saw there. The good news from my experience is it seems to me there are increasingly more hotels taking green steps. The bad news is there are still lots of hotels that just don't get the importance of conserving resources for the planet, if not for their budget.
Posted by Kit Cassingham
