Eco-friendly Hotel Design

Editor's Note: The following is a repost from www.design-training.com/blog/eco-friendly-hotel-design/.  Many of these energy saving ideas can be translated into the residential market.  In addition, the more exposed clients are to these types of options in the public setting the more apt they are to seriously consider it in the private.

Written by:  Jamie Gibbs, the resident blogger for home insurance comparison site Confused.com.

It’s important for us to save and conserve energy wherever we can. With the focus on reducing our carbon footprint and becoming more energy conscious, designers and architects are quickly adapting to implement energy saving methods in their design. In particular, the building of new hotels and designing for refurbishment of existing hotels means that it pays to know where the biggest savings in energy can be made. These green hotels make use of eco-friendly systems to conserve energy, protect the environment, and dramatically lower overall costs. Let’s take a look into some of the major eco-friendly initiatives of modern hotel design.

Recognizing a green hotel
For consumers, being able to identify these green hotels can be difficult without doing a lot of research.  Fortunately, hotels can be certified as 'green' by initiatives such as the Eco Crown Hospitality Certification; a globally recognized certification that uses universal standards to rate hotels.  A hotel that has this certificate (Gold, Silver or Bronze) can boast low waste production, environmentally conscious design, and a high degree of energy efficiency.  Alternatively, consumers can look through the Green Hotels Association's list of members for a selection of suitable hotels.  While these hotels are not certified, they are part of a community that is dedicated to energy saving hotel design.

Motion detector lights
Lighting accounts for roughly 12 percent of the total energy consumption of hotels, so an energy saving here results in a much lower cost base.  There are some quick fixes in this area, such as switching to LED bulbs, or compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in areas where lights are usually left on 24/7.  However, a more efficient way is to introduce smart lighting into the hotel.  Guests and staff tend to leave lights on needlessly and let them run while they aren't in the room.  The introduction of motion detector lights in guest rooms, for example, will ensure that there will only be light when there is someone there.  Motion sensor lights are now a common sight in hotels, and any hotel built in the past year or so is likely to have them.

Dual flush toilets
Older toilet cisterns tend to use between 3.5 and 7 gallons of water per flush.  In a standard house, this equated to roughly 30 percent of all water usage for the home.  In a hotel, the numbers quickly multiply up to a lot of wasted water.  New buildings are being designed with this in mind and have introduced dual flush toilets systems to reduce water waste.  These systems give the option of a light or heavy flush depending on how much water is needed to clean the toilet, and use less than 1.5 gallons per flush.  A 40 percent savings in water usage is significant when that savings is multiplied throughout all the rooms of a hotel.  Dual flush toilets are becoming commonplace in hotels throughout the world but an example of a newly built eco-hotel that implements this feature is the Element Hotel in Frankfurt (scheduled to open in 2014).

Key card climate control
Heating guest rooms can total up to a third of the energy bills at any hotel.  In a similar vein to innovations for eco-lighting, there are also methods to control the excessive heating in hotel guest rooms.  New technology has two modes; "occupied" and "economy".  When a guest uses their card to enter the room, "occupied" mode is activated, allowing a HVAC control unit to heat or cool the room to the guest's requirements.  When they lock the door with their keycard after leaving, "economy" mode is activated, saving up to 40 percent of energy in this manner.  This system can be seen in the Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco, whose Green Boutique rooms give consumers control over their environment via their key card.

Greywater harvesting
An average bath can use between 28 and 36 gallons of water, while showers accumulate up to roughly seven gallons per minute.  A majority of this water is wasted, however new measures are being taken in order to recycle it.  Greywater usually comes from baths, showers and hand basins (so-called because of its cloudy, grey color after use) and when put through a greywater harvesting system it is filtered, disinfected, and reused to fill toilet cisterns throughout the hotel.  If a dual flush toilet only uses 1.5 gallons per flush, a bath of greywater could power at least 19  flushes, saving a considerable amount of water usage.  The Dead Sea Spa in Jordan utilizes this system to great effect in a climate where water is a scarce commodity.

All of these individual innovations synergize their efforts to save considerable amounts of energy.  Sooner than later, eco-friendly industrial design will be a major requirement for all buildings, so the early adopters of these systems can see major benefits as they stay ahead of the game.  Teaching consumers about these initiatives can also have a major impact as public knowledge increases global awareness and support for future initiatives.
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Additional Sources:
The Franklin Institute - What's the cost of not conserving? http://fi.edu/guide/schutte/howmuch.html
Waterwise - Indoors. http://www.waterwise.org.uk/pages/indoors.html
Entergize - Key Card Technology. http//www.entergize.com/keycardsystems.html
Leonardo Energy - Energy Efficiency in Hotels. www.leonardo-energy.org/hotels
 

The Eco Choice Award Winner Is....

By The Eco Committee

In March we noted that the following post would announce the winner of the Eco Choice Award from the IP Expo.  Without further ado we would like to congratulate Sherwin-Williams!  They are so dedicated to sustainability that they have instituted EcoVision, a company-wide commitment to develop and implement ways to reduce their impact on the environment through conservation, innovation, accountability, respect and responsibility.  Here are a few specifics worthy of recognition.

• Most Comprehensive line of coatings that comply with LEED, CARD, OTC, SCAQMD, CHPS, NAHB, GGHC and other green guidelines and regulations.

• As a member of the Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Leaders Program, Sherwin-Williams has adopted a multi-site, corporate ISO 14001 certification program at major manufacturing and distribution sites to ensure they meet International Environmental Standards.

• Many Sherwin-Williams facilities are undergoing a lighting upgrade designed to reduce carbon emissions by over 14,000 tons per year.

• An EcoMet database at each of their major facilities tracks five major sustainability metrics- production, energy, natural resources, waste and recycling- and provides a clear and consistent process for measuring sustainable practices.

• For greater efficiency in plant operations, they're implementing manufacturing procedures that focus on waste reduction, recycling and zero discharge processes.

• Their new energy efficient manufacturing facilities include maintenance-free landscaping, UV reflecting glazing on windows, heat reflective roofing and maximized natural lighting.

• To reduce the carbon footprint of their vast fleet of trucks, they have experimented with biodiesel fuels and noise-reducing auxiliary power units.  They have implemented sophisticated software that allows them to plan delivery routes for maximum efficiency.

• They are investing in research and development of advanced coatings that use sustainable raw materials such as soybeans and sunflower oils.

• They are increasing the use of sustainable plastic paint containers, recycled labels and biodegradable shopping bags.

Footprinting Walks A Fine Line

By Joel MaKower Care Of Eco Committee
Reprinted by permission of GreenBiz Group Inc.  http://www.greenbiz.com/

This article seemed like an interesting take on a ecologically relevant concept that we all hear thrown about.  The Eco Committee decided to share the information with our readers.  Enjoy!

The idea of calculating one's "footprint" began in the 1990s with the notion of an "ecological footprint," a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. In those terms, a footprint is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital relative to the planet's capacity to regenerate it. Organizations like the Global Footprint Network (whose founder, Mathis Wackernagel, helped popularize the concept) use footprint calculations to answer such confounding questions as "How many Earths would it take if everyone lived like us?"


Today, companies are conducting exercises to determine their carbon footprints, water footprints, toxic footprints, energy footprints, land footprints, even paper footprints. For better or for worse, "footprint" has become variously synonymous with "analysis," "impact," "measurement," or "consumption" -- or even "emissions."

This is largely a step forward, in that it shows that companies are taking stock of their environmental impacts, presumably with the intention of reducing them. While purists may scoff at the pitter-patter of little footprints, decrying them as a weak substitute for more holistic analyses, the talk of footprinting has become fashionable among companies. As "footprinting" becomes increasingly commonplace, however, the term is being used, and misused, in a growing number of ways. It's hardly a case of greenwashing -- that is, of knowingly misleading, either by omission or misrepresentation. But the term risks being rendered meaningless, thereby distorting what began as a useful scientific concept.

Carbon remains the principal focus of footprinting: an analysis of how much carbon is emitted in the making, or the use, or the life cycle of a product or service, or the operation of a building or company or some other entity or activity. In many companies, this leads to commitments to make reductions. For example, the North American arm of LG Electronics announced in late 2011 plans to halve its carbon footprint by 2020. Also last year, Verizon unveiled a carbon footprint metric to help the telecom giant track how efficiently it delivers data to its customers -- specifically, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions produced while moving a terabyte of data. Five major hotel chains -- Fairmont, Hyatt, MGM, Hilton, and Marriott -- joined forces to create a single methodology for measuring and communicating their carbon footprints.

Most such efforts dovetail with growing demands for corporate transparency of environmental impacts or emissions. There's not necessarily a legal mandate for companies to disclose such things, but a growing number are doing so, pushed by institutional investors, customers, activists, and others. In 2011, more than 3,000 companies, including more than 80 percent of Global 500 firms, voluntarily reported at least some of their carbon emissions, water management and climate change policies to the Carbon Disclosure Project.

Some carbon footprinting exercises seem, well, silly. Over the past year, we've learned the carbon footprint of unwanted emails (a.k.a. "spam") -- roughly 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per message, in case you're wondering. (That, it turns out, is far more deleterious than the footprint of a tweet -- just 0.02 grams per 140 characters.) Kudos to those who take the time to calculate the various activities of our lives, for whatever it's worth.

To the extent that footprinting develops and propagates new methodologies that become standards within or among industries, such exercises stand to make a significant contribution. Case in point: More than 30 companies and organizations -- including Nike, Gap, Patagonia, and Walmart -- last year joined forces to create the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, with the first item on their agenda being the creation of a tool to measure the environmental impacts of clothing. Similarly, the Sustainability Consortium -- convened in 2009, initially by Walmart and now boasting a membership of nearly 80 retailers and consumer packaged goods companies -- has set out an ambitious agenda to create standards and tools to collaboratively develop life cycle–based standards and measurement tools for consumer products.

And then there's Puma, which raised the bar for such analyses by putting a dollar value on it impacts on nature. The shoe and sportswear company is measuring its use of ecosystems and plans to determine its economic impacts on ecosystem services, which is basically anything that nature provides: clean water, crops, soil formation, wildlife habitat, protection from storms, and the like. Puma's effort comes closest to the original notion of understanding one's full ecological impacts and, if emulated by others, stands to bring the idea of footprinting back in step with reality.