Green Hotel

The weather here in New York has been miserable of late, so it’s tough not to think about skipping town for a few days to sunnier skies. If you’ve reached that point already, Gregory Dicum of the New York Times recently visited four green hotels in California, including the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel, about which we’ve written previously here at gbNYC in the context of below-the-surface implications of green building mandates and incentives (see our LEED creep archive for much more on this important issue). Interestingly, Mr. Dicum found the Gaia to be “the closest to that of a mass-market chain. Its halls and rooms look almost precisely like those in any other particularly nice hotel in its price range.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, and Mr. Dicum did find that, at each of the hotels, “everyone on their staffs, from managers to maids, was well-informed about the green features.” In addition to the Gaia, Mr. Dicum and his wife were also guests at the Ambrose Hotel in Santa Monica, The Orchard Garden in San Francisco, and the Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee.

The Ambrose opened up in 2003 and registered with USGBC under the LEED for Existing Buildings (“LEED-EB”) system back in March. Deidre Wallace, who owns the hotel, told Mr. Dicum that she expects to receive her official certification soon. LEED-EB focuses mainly on the efficiency of building operations, and the Ambrose includes efficient lighting, appliances, and HVAC systems. Guest rooms are outfitted with low-VOC paints and sealants and the hotel also purchases a portion of its energy needs from wind power providers. It also offers guests the option of renting bicycles or hitching a lift with its biodiesel-fueled taxi.

Despite the recent rash of green hotel projects that have been announced here in New York City (Starwood 1, Greenhouse 26, and 330 Hudson Street), the hospitality industry continues to struggle in establishing a uniform definition for a green hotel. As we’ve discussed previously, the 2006 BD+C Green Building White Paper drew this same conclusion, which was echoed in a recent report in the Wall Street Journal that offered some important commentary on the industry’s efforts to adopt more sustainable business practices.

According to the Journal, while hotels are dealing with an increasing number of green vendors, they aren’t equipped with sufficient objective measuring sticks to assess the veracity of the green claims being made by these purportedly green product suppliers. So, in order to do so, some hotels are creating their own internal committees. Two Marriot executives chair a “green council” which evaluates the individual carbon footprint of potential products and also requires vendors to document how they save energy and use recycled products. The Journal reports that vendors “are scrambling to make their case to Marriott or risk being dropped.” Much more after the jump.