In the lodging industry, “luxurious” and “green” used to be mutually exclusive concepts. After all, the word “luxury” often connotes blissful excess with little concern for waste, whereas “green” implies a stripped-down experience based on conserving resources for the greater good.
Sure, many hotel chains have recently tried to appear more environmentally responsible by letting guests opt to re-use their linens rather than having them replaced each morning. But overall, the industry still falls considerably short of true eco-friendliness. Most hotels and motels still squander more and more energy, generate tons of trash, and send hundreds of gallons of waste and chemicals out into the environment every day.
The figures are startling even at the individual level. A single occupied hotel room uses an average of 218 gallons of water per day, according the California Environmental Protection Agency. And the average guest produces about two pounds of trash each night, according to Michelle White, director of environmental affairs for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. “In some places, it’s five or even six pounds,” she says. So at a single large hotel with, say, 1,000 occupied guest rooms, it’s fair to say that guests alone are generating at least a ton of waste every 24 hours, with the facility’s own operations contributing even more.
As White’s title suggests, some leading hoteliers no longer view “green luxury” as an oxymoron; they’re actively – and successfully promoting themselves as offering eco-friendly yet high-quality accommodations.
Fairmont, a century-old chain with hotels in San Francisco, Toronto and other North American cities, also maintains resorts in locations ranging from Hawaii to Bermuda to Monaco to Kenya. The company began integrating environmental concerns into its operations in 1990 because, White says, “it makes good economic sense. Our destinations and the health of those destinations are tied to our livelihoods. Besides, we all live and work in those locations.”
Today, Fairmont takes a green approach to virtually everything it does. “Our goal is to minimize our impact on the environment,” White says, citing as overall priorities waste management, energy and water conservation, and development of local partnerships with, for instance, organic food growers. But she emphasizes that, while the chain publicly promotes its efforts, it never compromises on guest comfort. “It’s done in a very streamlined way. Most of the time, the guest doesn’t see any evidence of it.”
Fairmont Hotels recently released the third edition of its “Green Partnership Guide,” a 104-page manual describing the chain’s best practices in a variety of environmental areas, and offering tips on how other businesses can launch and maintain their own environmental programs. Anyone interested in purchasing a copy should contact Fairmont’s office of environmental affairs.
A few examples:
The Fairmont Royal York in Toronto installed a commercial water softener in its laundry facility, which allows the hotel to clean each laundry load just with one wash and one rinse cycle, reducing water usage by about 125,000 gallons of water per day. This effort earned the hotel a usage rebate of nearly $50,000 from a new city program that rewards commercial water-savings initiatives.
In California, the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa replaced more than 4,000 incandescent bulbs with more efficient fluorescent lighting. The hotel reduced its energy consumption by 203,000 kilowatt hours per year, saving $61,000 annually in the process.
The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, obtains 40 percent of its electrical power from alternative sources such as wind and hydro power.
Restaurants in many Fairmont properties serve meals made with locally grown ingredients; some maintain their own herb gardens. Besides providing guests with fresher meals, the measure eliminates waste generated by transporting food over long distances. “The average [hotel] meal travels 1,500 miles before it hits your plate,” White says.
One area in which guests do experience the Fairmont’s approach first-hand: the chain’s green-conference option. Fairmont “Eco-Meet” events feature non-disposable items (for instance, pitchers of water rather than individual plastic bottles; whiteboards instead of flip charts), on-site recycling and, again, locally grown and organic foods.
The Fairmont’s efforts have gained plenty of peer accolades. In 2006 alone, the company won international awards for responsible tourism development and corporate social responsibility.
But White says the Fairmont’s real reward comes from the feedback the company hears from guests who chose the chain for its eco-friendly efforts. Says White: “We get a lot of business now because we have a green partnership program in place. People want to do business with a people who share their concerns about the environment.”
Green Marketing, Large Business
