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Green Upscale Hotels No Longer an Oxymoron

Old habits are hard to break but the hospitality industry is making progress.

Penny Bonda -- Interior Design, 2/20/2007 12:17:00 PM

Spending a night at a luxury hotel is the next best thing to being at home. For some it's even better, with amenities like heated towel bars, multiple shower heads, soft lighting, down pillows stacked three across and two deep at the head of a bed made with a feather mattress topper, a fluffy duvet and high thread count sheets, perfectly pressed, of course. The bathroom is stocked with lots and lots of thick towels, which the hotel often promises to reuse if the guest hangs them back on the rod, though that rarely happens.

All building types encounter struggles going green but none more so than hotels and restaurants, especially at the higher-end. In this highly competitive industry pleasing the customer is likely to be a higher priority than environmental initiatives. Low energy lighting, for example, is particularly tricky at upscale properties and hoteliers and designers have addressed it in a number of ways. Many remain unapologetic fans of the maligned incandescent lamp despite energy codes moving the industry toward more efficient lighting. Emlyn Altman, a lighting specialist at the hospitality design firm ForrestPerkins, wrote in the February 2007 issue of LD+A of the troubling issue of fluorescent lamp replacement when hotel maintenance personnel ignore color temperatures and consider only wattage and socket configuration, resulting in a random assortment of color—"not exactly the aesthetic impression the high-end hospitality market wants [for] its patrons."

Mike Barber from The Lighting Practice agrees that incandescents, especially MR lamps, will provide more desirable illumination. He suggests dimming incandescent lamps to reduce energy consumption and also extend lamp life two to three times. "An MR16 lamp has a nominal 5000 hour lamp life, dimmed only 10% (a fairly imperceptible change to the human eye) almost doubles lamp life to 10,000 hours, the same as a typical CFL. Dimming CFLs doesn't increase lamp life only reduces output," says Barber.

However, the Willard Intercontinental, a high-end historic property in Washington, DC, has changed all lamps to low-impact fluorescents, which look like traditional light bulbs and emanate pleasing light according to general manager Hervé Houdré in the Willard's recently published sustainability program. The report documents that the bulbs save the hotel money and reduce energy consumption by 9.3% per year.

Hotels use a tremendous amount of energy, which The Willard has reduced by purchasing ten percent of its electricity from renewable wind sources with the final goal being 100%. Other properties are also looking at alternative energy sources. A cogeneration power system that produces both electricity and heat at the same time has been installed at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco by a partnership between Host Hotels, Ritz-Carlton, United Technologies Corporation and the State of California. According to Jeanne Varney, Vice President Asset Management, Host Hotels & Resorts the system provides the 336-room hotel with 120 tons of cooling year round with 80% efficiency, emits 40% less carbon dioxide annually – equal to planting 150 acres of forest and emits 90% less nitrogen oxide – equal to removing 250 cars from the road each year.

Typical hotels use 218 gallons of water per day per occupied room. However, operators are finding that water recycling systems, lower laundry temperatures and efficient fixtures not only reduce water usage but also lower utility bills by 25 to 30 percent. In addition to the large amounts of water used by hotels, excessive use of laundry detergents and other cleaning chemicals pose dangers to the environment and to the housekeeping staff. Properties, such as San Francisco's Orchard Garden Hotel are turning to less toxic products. The 86-room boutique hotel, designed and built to LEED standards, made the change after testing the effectiveness of organic cleaning products. General manager Stefan Mühle, as quoted in Green Lodging News (pdf), concluded that citrus-based products cleaned just as well, were cost effective, and eliminated the respiratory issues and dry hands caused by the chemical cleaners.

Sustainable strategies such as these are beginning to take hold throughout a traditionally resistant industry, driven in part by consumer demand. According to the Travel Industry Association of America, 43 million people are self-proclaimed "eco-tourists" who are willing to pay 8.5 percent more to environmentally sensitive travel suppliers. A survey of U.S. travelers found 87 percent would be more likely to stay at green properties.

"The time has come for us to rethink hotel design," says Cliff Tuttle, senior vice-president at ForrestPerkins. Tuttle, also the director of sustainability for NEWH, is a relentless advocate for green hotel design and is working closely with some of the industry's biggest players to effect change with tools such as the development of a hospitality-oriented resource directory. Host Hotels and Resorts, the world's largest hotel ownership company with 135 properties representing over 270,000 rooms, has the influence through its buying power to persuade manufacturers to develop greener products. Some already are, according to a representative from Host's design and construction division. "We follow brand standards and it’s inevitable that they are getting greener. There is a growing commitment that's not going away,"