Hotels take on a greener hue

By Anne Mullens: taken from The Globe and Mail – Thursday March 5, 1998

CRISP sheets and fresh towels every day, unlimited hot water, little bottles of shampoo, tiny soaps wrapped in paper. These are some of the luxuries that travelers expect when staying in a nice hotel.
But when it comes to the environment, those hotels niceties add up to waste on a huge scale.

In fact, the inherent workings of a large hotel seem to dictate one immense drain on the environment, with rooms to heat in winter or cool in summer and clean spotless every day, TVs running, lights burning, toilets flushing almost constantly. Plus there are pools and saunas to heat, kitchens, bars and restaurants churning out mounds of garbage, and laundry, laundry, laundry.

“I really get offended at the astounding amount of waste I see in most hotels,” says Ian Gill, president of Ecotrust, a conservation organization operating in Canada and the United States. “That little bar of soap in your hotel room, you unwrap it, use it once. When you come back that night, they have removed it and replaced it with another one wrapped in paper.”

Mr. Gill spends at least half of his working life traveling through the United States and Canada, and he echoes other environment-minded travelers in his desire for more “green” hotels to choose from while on the road.

“As a business traveler, what I want most is a modem hook-up that works, not a little bottle of peach shampoo. Hotels could do so much to reduce their waste without reducing their service.”

That message has been getting out to hotels. In fact making hotels environmentally friendly is emerging as the latest trend in the hospitality industry. And Canada is on the leading edge. Witness the following recent developments:
- The Hotel Association of Canada recently launched its “Eco-rating” program, the first of its kind in the world. Like stars given for luxury, eco-rating will give from one to four “green leaves” to hotels that have environmental policies and programs in operation.
- Canadian Pacific Hotels, one of the world leaders in environmental programs, has announced the next phase of its “Green Partnerships” by introducing plans for industrial composting to its kitchens, the availability of no-waste “green conferences” and environmentally friendly golf-course management to its chain of 26 hotels
- B.C. Hydro, in conjunction with the B.C. and Yukon Hotel Association, launched a “green Hotel” accreditation program in November, 1996. Today, 16 hotels in British Columbia have undergone a B.C. Hydro inspection and have in place programs and equipment to reduce energy consumption, conserve water and reduce waste, earning them the designation “power Smart Green Hotel,” which they can advertise and promote to customers.

In short, many hotels are realizing that not only is a “green” hotel good for the environment, it can be good for business by reducing operating costs and promoting efficiency while attracting customers.

“That is the great thing about – everybody benefits,” says Ann Layton, vice-president of communications at Canadian Pacific Hotels, which since 1990 has been putting environmental practices in all 26 of its hotels, including making changes to lighting, toilets and taps, introducing environmentally friendly cleaning products and putting recycling boxes in every room, as well as donating excess soap, worn linens and unused food to charitable organizations.

A 1995 retrofit of the Banff Springs Hotel, for example, introduced energy-efficient lighting in 95 per cent of the hotel, which has reduced electricity costs by $140,000 a year. No complaints were received from guests about a change in ambience or light quality. In fact, guests didn’t even seem to notice, Ms. Layton says.

Elsewhere, the Sheraton Centre Toronto, operated by ITT Sheraton, modified the toilets in its 1,400 rooms to reduce the flushing volume by two litres per flush and now saves 35,000 litres of water daily on the estimated 17,000 flushes that occur each day in the hotel and meeting areas.

“We tried it out on the Club Floor first, because those are some of our most discriminating customers and we didn’t want to do it for the whole hotel if quality was going to be affected,” says Cynthia Bond, spokeswoman for Sheraton Centre. “No one complained and we are saving thousands of litres a day.”

It is now common in many hotels for guests to be given the option of keeping their towels rather than laundering them if they are staying more than one night. Hotels with this program report about 45 per cent of guests keep one or more towels by hanging them up rather than throwing them in the tub.

“It could probably be higher, but our housekeeping staff, if they have any doubt, changes the towels,” Ms. Layton says. “Still the reduction in laundry is significant.”

Eight years ago, when CP Hotels first surveyed its 10,000 employees about putting environmental policies in place, 95 per cent said they wanted hotels to go green and 85 per cent said they would even be willing to work harder without compensation to make it happen. With that mandate, CP Hotels drafted a 16-point action plan to target areas of highest concern to employees: waste reduction and recycling, water and energy conservation, green purchasing, and the elimination of toxic chemicals in the workplace, Ms. Layton says.

Extra Staff effort, at times, was indeed needed. At Hotel Newfoundland in St. John’s, no community recycling program at first was available, so staff negotiated with the local liquor control board to drop off hundreds of wine and spirit bottles at liquor stores for reuse by home wine makers.