From tom.rhodes at ncmail.net Wed Jan 3 14:19:58 2007 From: tom.rhodes at ncmail.net (Tom Rhodes) Date: Wed Jan 3 14:20:10 2007 Subject: [ncgreenhotels] Great New Year's Tips Message-ID: <8D15541F2E16C84B8BE05C60FF5F0389BA99CF@exchange.sys.p2pays.org> Happy New Year to all our P2Assist and NCGreenhotels Listserv members! We hope you all had a wonderful ChristmaHanukKwanza and a Happy New Year! Here are some great environmental tips from Joan Raymond at Newsweek that I thought you would appreciate. Thanks for your list membership. Please let your colleagues know that our listservs are free and there is much to share and learn through them. Kindest wishes, Tom Rhodes Environment: Easy to Be Green By Joan Raymond Newsweek Jan. 8, 2007 issue - You don't have to ditch leather or sell your car to help the environment. We've gathered 10 simple tips for living greener in 2007. Hey, it's a lot easier than losing those 15 pounds. 1. Feed the Bees Pesticides, pollution and habitat destruction are taking a toll on the birds and insects that pollinate about 80 percent of the world's food supply (or about one out of every three bites of food we eat), says Rose Getch of the National Gardening Association. To lend a helping hand, plant a pollinator garden. Yellow, blue and purple flowers will attract bees, while red and orange will attract hummingbirds. For more information, go to kidsgardening.com. 2. Clean Up, Naturally Household chemicals contribute to both in-door and outdoor pollution. This year, use more natural cleaners like the Greening the Cleaning line at imusranchfoods.com. Or make your own using vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice. For some great tips on green cleaning, go to eartheasy.com. 3. Ditch Your Junk Not only is junk mail annoying, it kills trees. Do yourself-and the forests-a favor by getting off the mailing lists of companies you don't support. You can contact the firms yourself, or check out subscription services like greendimes.com or 41pounds.org that promise to lighten your junk-mail load. For more information: thegreenguide.com. 4. Air Your Laundry Make like Grandma and line-dry your clothes once in a while. It not only saves money, but also decreases your yearly carbon- dioxide emissions. Likewise, run your washer on cold whenever possible-and use it only when it's full. 5. Recycle Your Gadgets Don't clog landfills with old electronics. If you're dumping a computer, manufacturers like Dell (dell.com), HP (hp.com) and Apple (apple.com) offer recycling options. Or consider donating. The National Cristina Foundation (cristina.org) will hook up your old PC or Mac with a nonprofit organization. Drop off your old cell phone at your local Staples store as part of a Sierra Club recycling effort (sierraclub.org/cellphones/). To find a drop-off center for rechargeable batteries and cell phones, check out the nonprofit Call2Recycle program at rbrc.org. Take advantage of community resources like hazardous-waste pickup or e-waste recycling events. 6. Cut the Lights Trade your old incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent ones, says Jenny Powers of the Natural Resources Defense Council. They use about 70 percent less energy than regular bulbs and last 10 times longer. For help in picking the best bulb for your needs, go to energystar.gov. Also, plug all your major electronics into a power strip, suggests eco-lifestyle expert Danny Seo, author of "Simply Green Giving" ($19.95; HarperCollins). Appliances and e-gadgets use electricity even when turned off, but flicking the switch on the power strip when you leave the house effectively unplugs them. Finally, check with your local utility company to see if it offers a "green power" option for its customers. Though that might cost slightly more, it's one way of supporting renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power. The U.S. Department of Energy provides comprehensive "green power" info at eere.energy.gov/green power. 7. Eat Your Veggies Have a meatless Monday. According to the Cambridge, Mass., environmental-advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists, meat production is energy-inefficient, sucking up a lot of natural resources. In fact, it takes about 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. "You don't have to be a vegetarian-just take a break once or twice a week," says group president Kevin Knobloch. "If everyone tried to do something that simple, it could have a huge environmental effect." And when you're shopping for that food, think local. It's more fuel-efficient (your food didn't have to travel thousands of miles to get to your table), and you're boosting the local economy. Use the search engine at localharvest.org to find farms, markets and other food sources in your area. And, of course, bring a reusable cloth bag to the market so you don't have to take the plastic ones. 8. Save a Tree According to the folks at stop globalwarming.org, the paper industry is the third largest contributor to global warming. If every U.S. household replaced one toilet-paper roll with a roll made from recycled paper, 424,000 trees would be saved. If every household in the United States bought recycled napkins instead of virgin-fiber napkins, we could save a million trees. If the thought of recycled paper doesn't do it for you, plant a tree. According to the National Arbor Day Foundation, the net cooling effect of one healthy tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day. You can go to arborday.org to find out which trees will do well in your ZIP code. If you don't have any room to plant, hundreds of eco-organizations have tree-planting projects. All you have to do is donate money. 9. Turn On the Tap Instead of spending big bucks on bottled water, drink the stuff that comes from your faucet. The reason? "It takes a lot of oil to make and ship those bottles, and once they're empty, most wind up in landfills or as litter," says Jen Boulden, cofounder of the online environmental community idealbite.com. If you're squeamish (Americans really do have some of the best tap water in the world), buy a water filter. For comparisons, go to waterfiltercomparisons.net. 10. Find an Eco-Date There was the metrosexual. Then the retrosexual. Now there's the ecosexual. So if one of your goals is to find that special, ecofriendly someone in 2007, check out social-networking communities like Vegan Passions (veganpassions.com), Earth Wise Singles (ewsingles.com), Green Singles (greensingles.com) or Green Passions (green-passions.com). Because two recyclers are better than one. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16399617/site/newsweek/ Visit us on the Web at: www.p2pays.org Tom Rhodes WasteReduction Specialist NC WasteTrader NC Division of Pollution Prevention & Environmental Assistance 1639 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699 (919) 715-6516 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://kirk.p2pays.org/pipermail/ncgreenhotels/attachments/20070103/a6bea8eb/attachment.htm From tom.rhodes at ncmail.net Mon Jan 8 09:52:06 2007 From: tom.rhodes at ncmail.net (Tom Rhodes) Date: Mon Jan 8 09:52:17 2007 Subject: [ncgreenhotels] Hard Water Costs Hotels A Load of Cash Message-ID: <8D15541F2E16C84B8BE05C60FF5F0389BA9C1A@exchange.sys.p2pays.org> Good day Illustrious NC Greenhotel Members, The Green Lodging News this week has a really interesting story on the costs associated with untreated hard water at a hotel. Please pass this on to those who may benefit. Also, please tell others about this listserv. Have a great day! Warmest wishes, Tom IS HARD WATER SAPPING YOUR ENERGY? By Mike Pederson Many business owners and managers are well aware of the problems caused by hard water-from clogged pipes and iron stains to spotty glassware and inferior drinking water. What they're not always aware of, however, is the impact of hard water on energy use and the associated costs. In hotels there are several types of equipment that can be affected by hard water, in terms of impaired efficiency and wasted energy: boilers, hot water heaters, cooling towers, humidifiers, washing machines, dishwashers, and shower heads to name a few. Let's take a look at how hard water affects the energy efficiency of boilers. Most municipal water supplies contain hardness ions that accumulate on heating elements and the internal surfaces of boilers. The scale buildup has an insulating effect that reduces the element's ability to heat the surrounding water. The boiler's thermostat continues to call for heat, so the element heats longer and more often. This causes wasted energy and high utility bills and ultimately causes the heating element to fail over time. When impurities reach an unacceptable level within the boiler, the impurities need to be removed by a process typically referred to as "blow down." These impurities are flushed to the drain. Makeup water has to then be added to the boiler to replace the water that was lost. The result is waste of water and energy plus more wastewater to drain. The Hard Costs of Hard Water According to the American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE), as little as 1/16 inch of scale can increase energy consumption by 11 percent. That means significant opportunity for savings. The prevention of scale formation, even on a small 500 hp boiler, can produce energy savings up to $30,000 per year. Based on a study conducted at New Mexico State University, it costs up to 29 percent more to heat untreated water. The research report, "Water Softeners as Energy Conserving Investments," sponsored by the Water Quality Research Council, showed that 29.7 percent more BTUs were consumed by gas water heaters that had been operated and tested on hard water than those that were operated on treated water. A total of 21.68 more BTUs were consumed by electric water heaters that had been operated on hard water. With hard water, more chemicals and detergents are needed for cleaning. For every grain of water hardness, detergent use increases 2 to 4 percent for each grain of hardness per 1,000 gallons of water used. An additional 1.5 pounds of detergent are required. That means increased costs for detergents and more wastewater with impurities going to the sewer. That is not good for your business and not good for the environment. Why Soft is Better The solution to hard water problems is "water conditioning," a term often used generically for water treatment. There are different types of water treatment solutions-softening, reverse osmosis, or filtration. A water treatment consultant will typically assess water usage, water chemistry and space availability to come up with a customized water treatment solution. Staff at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dallas reduced scale in the hotel's boilers by 90 percent by installing a softener system and also reaped the benefits of a 30 to 35 percent savings in detergent and chemical use. For a typical restaurant that uses hard water, it costs $1,140 per month to heat the water (based on $38 per day to heat 4,000 gallons). Water softening can save as much as 30 percent-a cost savings of $342 per month, adding up to more than $4,000 in savings annually. Adding water treatment to the mix of other energy savings measures in your establishment can provide significant benefits: protecting your investment in energy-saving equipment; improving equipment efficiency; increasing your chances for an energy-related government tax break; and helping to protect the environment. Mike Pederson is manager of application engineers, Culligan International Co. He can be reached at Mike.Pederson@culligan.com . Visit us on the Web at: www.p2pays.org Tom Rhodes WasteReduction Specialist NC WasteTrader NC Division of Pollution Prevention & Environmental Assistance 1639 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699 (919) 715-6516 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://kirk.p2pays.org/pipermail/ncgreenhotels/attachments/20070108/6cd84f4f/attachment.htm From tom.rhodes at ncmail.net Tue Jan 9 13:46:53 2007 From: tom.rhodes at ncmail.net (Tom Rhodes) Date: Tue Jan 9 13:47:01 2007 Subject: [ncgreenhotels] Eco-purchasing for Hotels Message-ID: <8D15541F2E16C84B8BE05C60FF5F0389BA9DB2@exchange.sys.p2pays.org> Illustrious NC Greenhotel List Members, Greening in the NC hotel industry is taking an upswing. NC Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance is receiving more inquiries about how to reduce waste and become more environmentally friendly. We have established a Green Hotel Webshare page to which we will be adding documents for you to use and share. Please pass this link on to anyone whom you believe will find it useful. That includes hotels, motels, B&Bs and any lodging facility..... Today's feature about hotel eco-purchasing on the Green Hotel Webshare may be found at this link: http://www.p2pays.org/webshare/hospitality/ Please invite your colleagues to join the NC GreenHotels Listserv at: http://kirk.p2pays.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncgreenhotels Warmest wishes, Tom Visit us on the Web at: www.p2pays.org Tom Rhodes WasteReduction Specialist NC WasteTrader NC Division of Pollution Prevention & Environmental Assistance 1639 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699 (919) 715-6516 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://kirk.p2pays.org/pipermail/ncgreenhotels/attachments/20070109/7e761c5a/attachment.htm From tom.rhodes at ncmail.net Tue Jan 16 14:47:46 2007 From: tom.rhodes at ncmail.net (Tom Rhodes) Date: Tue Jan 16 14:47:58 2007 Subject: [ncgreenhotels] Marketing your green hotel Message-ID: <8D15541F2E16C84B8BE05C60FF5F0389BAA1F0@exchange.sys.p2pays.org> Good day GreenHotel Members, Here is an excellent article brom the Green Lodging Newsletter by Colette Chandler about promoting your Green Hotel. With green certification programs still being fairly new and most consumers not understanding what they mean, it can become increasingly difficult to know how to market a green hotel. Choosing to just focus on certification can leave leisure travelers and meeting planners alike confused by the myriad of green-certified symbols. It's a much better idea to choose to focus on your hotel's green offerings, mission and values-what sets it apart. It's easy to assume that the eco-conscious travelers will naturally find your green hotel and choose it because it is green, but that is not always the case. It reminds me of the concept, "build it and they will come." Just because you are a certified green hotel does not mean that consumers will know it or, as I mentioned previously, understand what it means. It's your job to teach them. Here are a few things to keep in mind. * Tell them why your hotel is certified as a green hotel. * If you're one of just a few in the area, make this a point of differentiation, emphasizing your commitment to the planet and the strict standards to which your hotel adheres. This gives you an opportunity to emphasize your programs. * If your hotel encourages consumers to reuse their sheets and linens, explain why. * Tell them how you carry your commitment to environmentally friendly operations through the companies and vendors with whom you align. * Explain the importance of conserving natural resources and how your hotel supports this. * Teach your front desk people how to make your guests aware of your efforts. Give them opportunities to get involved and be part of the solution. Many consumers want to get involved; they just don't know where to start. * Do you use organic products if possible, especially when cleaning the rooms? Why not tell your guests about it in your literature, or put a leave-behind placard in the room mentioning it and its benefit? For example, "Your room was cleaned using organic and environmentally friendly cleaning products..." * Have you overhauled your hotel to include solar panels or fluorescents? Make it known to your guests why you are committed to the planet and how it benefits them. Mention it in your member newsletter or company literature. * Teach them about reducing waste in landfills by donating your hotel's used linens and furniture to a local charity. * Communicate your in-room conservation practices, such as low-flow showerheads, faucet aerators, etc. Promote Overall Benefits Hotels, like many other businesses, mistakenly list features rather than overall benefits. Here are some examples of what you can say: * "Our hotel was built using environmentally friendly materials, such as bamboo, reducing the toxins that are normally emitted into the air by non-renewable resources." * "We use bamboo sheets that are made from natural fibers. Not only do they feel like silk, because they naturally breathe, but you'll experience a more restful and comfortable sleep." Naturally, marketing your green initiatives will help you gain additional exposure in the media. The media likes to know about innovative companies, and now they're starting to look for more environmentally friendly stories. It's okay to use this to your advantage by highlighting your hotel's other initiatives. Not only will you continue to educate consumers on why they should choose your hotel over others, you'll succeed in getting consumers to talk up your initiatives. Find new ways to reach out to consumers who are looking for greener travel options by listing your hotel in the Natural Green Pages or various other green-oriented websites. Extend your message through your vendors and you'll reach out to even more people in a cost-effective manner. Just remember to continue to find new ways to show your commitment to the environment. It's not enough to be green; consumers expect you to perform equal or superior to conventional hotels. Just make sure you're communicating it to them every step of the way. Colette Chandler is an expert in consumer health and environmental trends and the President of The Marketing Insider, a marketing and communications consulting firm that teaches companies how to profit from consumer trends. She can be reached at (614) 776-1416, or by e-mail at cchandler@marketing-insider.com . Thanks for being a part of our listserv. We welcome comments, questions and solutions on NC GreenHotel subjects. Remember, this is a listserv, not a newsletter. Please share with others! Best regards, Tom Visit us on the Web at: www.p2pays.org Tom Rhodes WasteReduction Specialist NC WasteTrader NC Division of Pollution Prevention & Environmental Assistance 1639 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699 (919) 715-6516 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://kirk.p2pays.org/pipermail/ncgreenhotels/attachments/20070116/4581b7ee/attachment.htm