Added: Aug 7, 2009

From: GreenopolisTV

Duration: 0:47

Reward the Good Guys- Use Green Hotels Years ago I remember an amusing story from Scandic Hotels, one of the industry leaders in green hotels, who found that recycling, eliminating toxic cleaners and bleaches, conserving energy and water and even shampoos, not only helped the planet, but the bottom line as well. It seems that Scandic was pioneering what they called the ecoroom made from sustainably sourced woods, cottons and wools in the linens and towels- no synthetic fabrics, no toxics in the construction, and designed in such a way that when it came time to change the decor, parts of the room could be reused in the new motif. One of the changes they wanted to make was to move away from plastic clothes hangers to ones made from sustainably harvested wood from well managed forests. Fortunately they have a lot of these in Scandinavia. But their supplier was still stuck in an old mindset that he could dictate plastic as the material because thats what he thought people wanted. He grew so stubborn that he lost Scandic, one of his biggest customers, when they refused to bend on their principles. He was living very well in Switzerland at the time. One of their consultants joked, He had to move to a cheaper country! Scandics Sustainability Website is like a little trip to Disneyland- with interactive environmental and other features. A live sustainability tracker shows the savings that Scandic has achieved in energy, water, waste and CO2- the trackers are ticking upward live as you read them. This kind of education for customers makes good business sense for Scandic and builds loyalty among their guests. Their rooms have baskets with 3 waste compartments, organic matter to be composted, paper to be recycled and other materials, glass, plastics, metals that are also recycled. You can try a fun interactive version of their waste collection system here. Then ask you hotel how to recycle your waste during your stay. Hanging up towels to use another day saves over 5 liters of water 30 grams of detergent per towel! Imagine how much water can be saved by everyone hanging up towels that dont really need to be washed, but just dry on the rack? Scandic also replaced small disposable shampoo and soap packages with wall mounted dispensers in the shower that give you just what you need and same millions of bottles for the landfills in the process. When I travel, I always pack up my bottles that still have shampoo in them and put them in a nice looking basket at home for guests. My houseguests appreciate the touch, the shampoo doesnt get wasted, and I can recycle the bottles at the end of their life span. Saves me money too- I havent bought a bar of soap or a bottle of shampoo for guests in years! (But dont tell my guests- they think Im spoiling them) And if you dont read or need the daily paper delivered to your hotel room door- let them know- some hotel chains are eliminating this feature or offering it only on demand- dramatically reducing the number of newspapers bought, read (or often unread and tossed every day. Another tip: Read the paper online or on your PDA. You can get most of the news you need for free and save paper and transport costs. Enjoy your green stay at your next hotel- and if you dont want the chocolate on the pillow, save it for me!

Channel: Nonprofit

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