COVER STORY, SEPTEMBER 2008

GREENING YOUR VACATION
A look into hospitality’s sustainable initiatives.
Ashley Ball

While going green has become part of the everyday lingo in the commercial real estate industry, one of the most unlikely suspects in the business is jumping on the sustainable bandwagon. From Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide to InterContinental Hotels Group, corporate hoteliers are incorporating sustainability into their luxury offerings in order to guarantee customer satisfaction.

In order to decrease its environmental footprint, Starwood Hotels has rolled out element, a hotel concept that is committed to achieving LEED Certification.

“This is something that our customers are looking at more and more,” says Nick Lakas, director of operations for Starwood’s element and aloft hotels. “They’re growing increasingly concerned with the environment, and they want a product that is definitely environmentally conscious.”

As a response to these new customer demands, Starwood has rolled out element, the first major hotel brand committed to LEED certification. Consisting entirely of new-build hotels, the extended-stay element brand is expected to open more than 20 locations throughout the country by the end of 2009.

Element Chicago O’Hare Airport, which is currently under construction, is slated for completion in June 2009. Additionally, element-Leawood, which will be located in Leawood, Kansas, is expected to open in the first quarter of 2010. The first element, which is currently being reviewed for LEED certification, opened in July in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is already yielding a positive response.

“The local community has been very much intrigued by the product, coming by, taking tours of the facility, and really learning what we’ve done as far as environmental positioning and green awareness,” Lakas says. “The customers that have stayed in the hotel love everything about element, and the fact that it is green aware and LEED-certified is just a bonus to them.”

In fact, one of Starwood’s goals for element is to maintain the guest experience, while increasing environmental consciousness. Some of the most significant green aspects of the facility — many of which are located in the restrooms — can be easily overlooked by the everyday traveler.

One nearly imperceptible difference is the 10-inch by 10-inch rain showerhead that is installed in each guestroom bathroom. This unique showerhead reduces the output of water on a permanent basis without making the guests feel like they are encountering a low-flow showerhead. With a rain shower, the water does not need to be coming out as strong as with a regular showerhead, which allows minimal water waste, without sacrificing comfort, according to Lakas. Coinciding with the showerhead changes, are the sinks in each guestroom bathroom, which also utilize less water pressure.

“You don’t need a lot of water pressure coming out of your sink,” Lakas explains. “We’ve restricted that down to a level that still allows the gentlemen who are shaving to get their razor clean, and still allows you to get everything off your toothbrush, without as much water coming out.”

Additionally, the guestroom bathrooms feature duel-flush toilets. A staple in Europe and Asia, these toilets have separate buttons for discarding liquid and solid waste. Although there will be a little bit of an education process for the innovative feature, according to Lakas, in the long run, the duel-flush toilet will significantly reduce water usage.

Many of the sustainable aspects of element hotels — such as rain shower heads and duel-flush toilets — can be found in the guest bathrooms.

Those sustainable initiatives are just in the guestroom bathrooms. One of the most notorious problems for hotels is daily laundering of sheets and towels. Although element will still launder sheets and towels daily if requested, the hotel’s policy is to change the sheets and towels every 3 to 4 days. Also, because element is an extended-stay hotel, guestrooms feature a full set of appliances. In order to save energy, every room features high-quality General Electric energy-star products. LED and compact-fluorescent lighting are also used throughout the property. 

Much like Starwood, InterContinental Hotels Group has recognized the green movement as a great way to manage costs, while meeting guests’ needs more efficiently. While Starwood is currently expanding its element initiative, InterContinental is focusing on finding the green baseline to implement into each of the hotelier’s existing brands.

“The biggest thing we’re trying to do right now is make sure that we have a systematic approach so that each brand knows how it fits in, and so that we have a very clear idea ourselves as to how we measure and manage green,” explains David Jerome, senior vice president of corporate responsibility for InterContinental Hotels Group. “Where we are spending a lot of time right now is just making sure that we all have the same language.”

InterContinental Hotels Group is expanding its sustainable initiatives into many of its flagship locations.

In order to define its green baseline, InterContinental has created the Innovation Hotel program, which allows the public to explain to the corporation what they see as standards for sustainable hospitality. Travelers interested in sustainable tourism can go to the Innovation Hotel web site and suggest environmental priorities for InterContinental to begin implementing into its worldwide hotels.

“It gives us ideas about what people find interesting and intriguing,” Jerome says. “We are just trying to make sure we are delivering an engaging hotel proposition to people that is better for the planet.”

Energy conservation, recycling, water conservation and destination conservation are the four action areas that the Innovation Hotel has pinpointed for environmental tourism. Some of the green features of the virtual hotel have already been executed in existing properties. For example, many hotels within the InterContinental brand have greens roofs and flat panel televisions, which are aspects of the Innovation Hotel. Additional green features for the Innovation Hotel include the forwarding of all unused non-perishable food to charities or food banks, a rainwater harvesting system to supply water to toilets, windpower to generate electricity, and furniture and fittings made entirely from recycled materials. Essentially, if all of the Innovation Hotel initiatives were used to create a brand, it could be the world’s first 100 percent ecologically friendly hotel, according to an InterContinental Hotels Group press release distributed in April.

While social responsibility is clearly a key factor driving the hospitality green initiative, both Starwood and InterContinental are not denying the cost benefits that go hand-in-hand with sustainability. Hotels can arrive at a moderate level of green performance without incurring too much extra spending, according to Jerome.

“Rising energy costs are actually driving efficiency gains,” he explains. “It’s shortening the payback horizon for very small things that need to be done anyway.”

In addition to long-term energy savings, Starwood has benefited from a more fast-paced time-to-market for its element brand. Certain jurisdictions are more favorable towards sustainable developments, making it easier for these products to get approved and underway as quickly as possible.

“Purely as an example — not factual data — if your typical timeline to get city approval is 180 days for a normal project, then a green building is getting approved in somewhere between 120 and 150 days,” Lakas explains. “Shorter timeline through approval means you can get your building in the ground faster, which means you can start to generate revenue and stream it into the economy [more quickly].”

Using element and the Innovation Hotel as its models, Starwood and InterContinental are moving in a positive direction towards sustainable tourism.

“We’ll use element as an incubator and really our leadership tool for environmental design and performance,” Lakas says. “We will take the things that work very well and then start adopting them into our other family of brands.”

“I don’t think we need to just look at going green as a luxury offering,” Jerome says. “I think that the opportunity to democratize green [development] exists.”

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