[Ed Note: 6 years later, people can’t market green as something that drives bookings, but if you aren’t green, you could lose business. The point is: It’s not an amenity, it’s expected.]
LEED compliancy is often an expensive, and frustrating, process. Many hoteliers feel it just means a sterile, ugly building; others think it is imperative – not for the good of the earth – but the marketability of their brand. Whatever reason people use, one thing is for certain – it is relevant, it is part of the standardization of the green movement, and it is something that is here to stay. In what form, I am not too sure, but the need to abide environmentally aware construction and renovation is paramount in our eco-hungry clients’ eyes. The Green Movement isn’t a movement anymore, it’s just the way business should be done. This isn’t just about guests, nor industry trends. This is just about smart business.
After two decades of slowly getting there, the practice of being ecological in the hotel industry has gripped us at every angle. One of the reasons green has finally been benchmarked into the hotel industry is that people caught on that “green” can often mean “saving money”. Many aspects of being green are really just about being conscious about how you use your resources, and how you conserve. That is what a good GM is doing all the time! Many of these things significantly increase savings, and general managers seem to begetting it. Less wasted paper, reusing and readapting office furniture, I have even seen products from craigslist for back of house operations. The hotel industry has finally settled into being green aware and acquiescing to guests’ desire to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Just a few of these powerful tools that are environmentally friendly as well as create savings: In room Energy Management Systems (needs room key to have lights work), refrigerator’s with absorption technology, CFL lightbulbs, thin client networks, laundry water recycling systems, cogen heat capture systems, bathroom amenities’ current trend moving away from small bottles to refillable dispensers, installing solar at properties (Cavallo Point in Sausalito has panels on their contemporary buildings, while Wilbur Hot Springs is 100% solar). All these things are, primarily, about savings for the hotel. If that is the way you need to sell it to the owners, then so be it. You can simply relax and enjoy the added benefit of helping the environment, as well as catering to your guests, echoing their ideals, creating a brand they can identify with, endorse, and come back to.
Now let’s look at some ways this becomes incredibly complex. There are some design issues that come into play when you are designing with something like LEED in mind. This isn’t necessarily about saving money or resources. This is about building responsibly. However, there are many people that aren’t sure LEED is all that responsible themselves. It comes under intense scrutiny from equity and construction people, as well as environmentalists. Construction types think it is an out of date, inefficient system. Equity people think it is too expensive. Green people think it is too wasteful, and full of endless missed opportunities. Most agree it needs overhauling.
It isn’t an option with building, at this point; you must go green. You *want* to go green, but going LEED creates a conundrum for project managers. You need the designation so that people know you are legitimate. If you didn’t have it, and kept saying “we are really eco conscious with design” it doesn’t mean anything for consumers. They can’t identify with it or understand it, and prefer something tangible that verifies any “green” claims made. Hence the popularity and near necessity for people to passionately campaign for LEED accreditation, a process that can take years of planning, and years of operating before status is granted. What is problematic is that the cost associated with creating this marketable aspect to your green building limits how green you can be. When you spend $200K on a LEED architectural consultant just to vet the complex process, it becomes pretty obvious you *could* spend that on actually being more green. The arcane regulations are difficult to get through, and it is an inefficient process. The costs associated with abiding a frustrating, and at times arbitrary and muddy, process such as becoming LEED compliant. I have seen some projects that got into the millions in pursuit of the title LEED. I think it is important to build and operate green, and for now the only thing we have is LEED. I just find it an obvious “throw the hands in the air and shrug” moment in regards to whether LEED needs an overhaul. By spending money to be green, you limit your ability to be green. This is a problem, and LEED needs to address it if they want to stay the industry leader in green certification. If it isn’t addressed, someone else will and we will have a brilliant new process to vet the altruism of equity, architect, design, and management.
I am excited about the future of all this, and thought I would just address some of the majour points. Green has been done to death, but not by me. I think it is just the way business is happening at this point, and if you aren’t aware of that…. get hip and go green!
The below is overkill, but here are some thoughts on LEED from treehugger and grist, as well as a couple others. I just raise the point because I apparently like adding complexity to an already dizzying issue. =)
https://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/slate_on_decide.php
“The point system creates perverse incentives to design around the checklist rather than to build the greenest building possible.”
https://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/10/26/leed/index1.html
Grist says “Let’s Fix It”
https://www.icsc.org/srch/government/briefs/200810_leedtalking.pdf
council on shopping centers doesn’t like it, but does have a few good, key points
https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4184/is_20041028/ai_n10047515
3 key problems
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