Greening the Lodging Industry Program
The impact of 'greening the lodging industry'
Since 1995, Green Seal has partnered with the lodging industry, the nation's second largest employer, to promote environmentally responsible products and practices within lodging properties. Green Seal's campaign to inform the nearly 54,000 U.S. hotels and motels focuses on how environmental efforts both improve the bottom line and benefit the environment.
The average hotel purchases more products in one week than one hundred families typically do in a year. Furthermore, both hotel guests and staff may be exposed to many environmental toxins from products ranging from cleaners to paint to floor coverings. These all represent opportunities to reduce impact and improve sustainability.
Read about some of the benefits of green purchasing decisions.
What we do
Green Seal works in a variety of ways with the lodging industry and its users, providing technical guidance, case studies, and certification of green hotels. Green Seal:
- Certifies lodging properties that meet the Green Seal environmental standard, GS-33;
- Writes articles to educate the industry through such publications as the National Hotel Executive Magazine and Lodging;
- Contributes to the Engineering and Environment Committee of the American Hotel & Lodging Association; and
- Supports government programs to identify green hotels, including those in Pennsylvania, Georgia, California, Virginia, and Maryland.
How we do it
Green Seal is a member of the Environment and Engineering Committee of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) and the Green Meeting Industry Council. We also are a part of numerous environmental programs that help the lodging industry, including the CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies) Green Hotel Initiative, and the U.S. EPA's Sustainable Travel and Tourism Roundtable.
What we've accomplished so far . . .
Over the past ten years Green Seal has helped raise the lodging industry's awareness of the importance of environmental responsibility. Through its hotel certification program, individual properties that demonstrate environmental leadership in their operations and purchasing can gain recognition and the market advantage that brings. By partnering with a number of government agencies, mostly at the State level, Green Seal has also been able to bring tangible benefits to certified properties through the promise of increased business from government. Green Seal's continuing educational tools, ranging from guidance monographs to periodic articles, has helped educate hotel executives, managers, and staff about the importance of sustainability and the ways hotels can operate in a more sustainable way.
Examples of our work:
- Green Seal has contributed regular articles on green products and services to the American Hotel and Lodging Association's magazine, Lodging, which has a readership of 176,000 hotel managers and affiliates.
- Green Seal has certified dozens of properties in key travel areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia and in a number of National Parks.
- Green Seal audited four properties in Virginia's Environmental Lodging Program to determine opportunities for environmental improvement and to quantify the benefits that would accrue, including financial ones.
Take a look at some of our successful projects.
Green Seal has worked with the following in greening the lodging sector:
- Pennsylvania
- California
- Georgia
- Virginia
- Maryland
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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