The bottom line of green is black
by Glenn RittTedd Saunders watched the inauguration of Barack Obama with a sense that, finally, the entire country will take global climate change seriously. “For too long, we have been borrowing huge sums of money from China to purchase dirty fuels from unfriendly, if not dangerous, nations,” he said. “Now, the new president is telling us we must all be part of the solution.”
Saunders understood that 20 years ago – when he began to convert his family-owned Saunders Hotel Group into a green company, with his family’s support. The true epiphany, however, occurred a few years later when his father was sitting for breakfast over French toast.
“I call it the condiment incident,” Saunders told the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce’s Travel Symposium on Wednesday. “My father asked to have the maple syrup passed to him. He then saw the huge price marked on it. ‘How can it be so expensive for a tiny package?’ he asked incredulously.
“This is a good learning moment,’ I said to him. ‘It’s about climate change. It is severely stressing maple trees, which are producing less syrup. Demand is not up, but supply is down.’”
“My father suddenly said, ‘We need to do something about this. That was his ‘Aha!’ moment over French toast,” related Saunders, who not only helps manage his family’s hotel business and is its chief sustainability officer, but also is president of Ecological Solutions Inc. and author of the book, “The Bottom Line of Green is Black.”
From that point forward in 1992, his father went from supporter to proponent; and the family company – which owns and operates numerous properties in several states, including the Lenox Hotel in Boston – has been a leader in the green hospitality movement.
Just as his father was converted, Saunders is convinced that businesses can lead the way, especially when they see how environmentally conscious policies will benefit their bottom lines.
“Commercial buildings nationwide account for 38 percent of all the carbon dioxide emissions, 40 percent of all energy consumption and 68 percent of all electricity use,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the hotel industry is the fourth most-intensive use of energy among all business sectors, Saunders told his colleagues.
Doing well by doing good
“Our policies have put us competitively over the top,” Saunders told his audience, as he listed four results of his company’s green practices:
• Reduce operating costs through waste reduction and efficiency measures.
• Increase visibility as a leading company among your competition.
• Improve morale and productivity from employees who share the common goal.
• Enhance loyalty and good will with guests, potential customers and your surrounding company.
“Is there any other business strategy to do all four of these benefits?”
It’s challenging enough to convert a relatively new hotel to a green facility. It was daunting to do so at the Saunders’ company’s flagship, The Lenox Hotel in Boston, which was built more than a century ago for the then eye-popping price tag of $1.1 million.
But when it became one of the nation’s first 20 Energy Star hotels, “we received incredible recognition for orchestrating this innovative approach,” Saunders told the symposium.
The Lenox not only minimizes chemicals and waste, while improving air and water quality, but it also “helps raise awareness for millions of guests, employees, community members, students and businesspeople – including many competitors.”
Saunders points to nearly 100 corporate-wide innovative initiatives the family has implemented, including becoming the first hotel company to totally offset air pollution and carbon emissions from electricity usage.
Others include:
• State-of-the-art heat pumps for climate control
• Green-certified wood products
• Super-insulated windows
• Natural cleaners and environmentally sound paint
• Efficient light bulbs
• Conservation shower heads, faucets and toilets
• Green dry cleaning services
• Locally produced food products to reduce the amount of truck exhaust for deliveries.
• Eco-friendly bath amenities
• Conservation-oriented linen policies
• A special guest channel featuring environmental programming
• A consumers’ guide produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists in each room.
Within its own industry, the Saunders Group spearheaded the CERES’ Green Hotel Initiative and its Best Practices program. That is significant for every hospitality and hotel company because a growing number of companies are demanding green practices before contracting for events and conferences.
It’s all part of a rapid and wide-ranging change in public and consumer attitudes that will weed out non-green hospitality businesses at their peril, said Saunders. He points to four recent surveys proving his point.
• The Travel Industry Association reports that 54 percent of respondents opt for an environmentally sound hotel.
• Orbitz said that 57 percent of Americans place importance on eco-friendly destinations.
• Travelocity reports that 80 percent of its respondents are willing to spend more on eco-friendly hotels.
• The Roper study says 85 percent of consumers have a more positive image of an eco-friendly business than ever before.
Proving that point, Saunders explained how his company’s practices have garnered invaluable publicity around the globe – from CNN to CBS to Conde Nast, as well as citations by companies like British Airways. A New York Times article said his company is “pleasing guests and the planet.”
What is the CERES Green Hotel Initiative?
“As more companies require environmental criteria in their RFPs from hotels, being green no longer is just a well-intended practice related to how often you change the sheets,” said Saunders. It could make the difference between getting business and losing it.
He took out a recent RFP he received from Estee Lauder, for example, that asked a series of questions about hotel green practices as a qualification to get their meeting business. Other companies following this practice range from Fidelity Investments to CBS, he said.
At the heart of his argument is CERES, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies to address the sustainability challenges. Its mission reads: “Integrating sustainability into capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.”
The Green Hotel Initiative, in particular, is designed to increase and demonstrate market demand for environmentally responsible hotel services. Leaders behind the GHI – including representatives from business, the hotel industry, labor, academia, and environmental advocacy organizations – have identified the “tremendous potential for the combined buying power of corporate and organizational purchasers of hotel services. The ongoing challenge for the GHI is to determine how to leverage that buying power to increase the supply of green hotel services – for both businesses (as institutional purchasers) and individual travelers.”
The initiative:
• Educates purchasers of hotel services, particularly large buyers such as corporate meeting planners, about what they can ask from lodging providers,
• Creates vehicles for these purchasers to express their demand for these services, and
• Provides mechanisms for hotels to communicate their environmental performance.
CERES tools include:
• Best Practice Survey, an easy-to-use list of criteria that helps a purchaser to assess a hotel's environmental commitment and performance. Using the survey enables decision-makers to choose hotels that meet all business needs, including their own environmental preferences. This tool also helps make the hotel industry aware of business demand for "green" accommodations.
• GHI Guest Request Card, a tool to help individual travelers request environmentally responsible services upon checking-in to a hotel, as well as the opportunity to provide feedback when checking-out. This tool also sends an important message to hotels that there is a customer demand for environmentally friendly services. To order cards for your organization please use the GHI Guest Request Card order form .
• GHI Community, which offers a free online list serve that enables participants to become part of a virtual community of green hotel advocates.
For more information, or if you represent a hotel or are a green hotel advocate and would like to get more involved, please contact Beth Ginsberg Holzman, Corporate Accountability Manager, at holzman@ceres.org or 617-247-0700 x121.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ––Margaret Mead
To view or download presentations from the chamber's Travel Symposium, click here.
Glenn Ritt Glenn Ritt is editor and co-publisher of Cape Business Publishing LLC. He is the former publisher of Cape Cod Community Newspapers and editor of The Bergen Record in New Jersey. 
