Luxury Hotelier - April 2008 - (Page 36)

36| Innovate Managing energy the green way Green hotel operator discusses best practices hile many hotels have reduced their energy consumption to cut costs, these efforts increasingly are part of an overall strategy by the hospitality industry to become more environmentally friendly. The Orchard Garden Hotel (www.theorchardgardenhotel. com) in San Francisco, part of the Portfolio Hotels & Resorts group, is California’s first property to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-New Stefan Mühle Construction certification. The hotel, which opened in 2006, was designed from the ground up as a green building, using recycled and sustainable materials and innovative technologies to conserve energy and water. LUXURY HOTELIER spoke with General Manager Stefan Mühle. W THE ORCHARD GARDEN HOTEL Q. Was certification expensive? A. I can tell you that our upfront cost on this $20-million project was no more than $100,000 for going green. That’s very much in agreement with studies that are out there. A. The switches were purchased from a supplier in the United Kingdom, Diyses Ltd. (www.diyses.co.uk). The switch controls both the fan coil unit and room lighting. It’s quite simple. Before you can turn on the lights in the room, you put your keycard into a plug that is on the wall, and that enables the circuit. Then you can turn on the lights and the air comes on automatically. When you leave, you take your keycard with you. So you know where your keycard is at all times, and the lights automatically go off. We don’t have before and after data because the hotel is new, but we estimate that it saves about 15 percent on electricity. Q. Are you using compact fluorescent lighting in the new property? A. We’re using a combination, depending on what environment we’re in. We have compact fluorescents in the guestrooms, LEDs for exit signage and emergency signage, and then some halogen bulbs in the restaurant. Selecting windows proved to be difficult because we’re on the sunny side of street. The LEED program dictates that you have to have a specific daylight factor in all areas. We wanted to make sure every guestroom had true daylight coming in. We’re using double-paned and specially glazed glass that minimizes heat absorption and reflects more of the light. That triggered another issue, which was light pollution with the neighbors. We had to mitigate that by making sure we’re not applying too aggressive a glazing on glass. Q. How did you get involved with the LEED certification program? A. When we sat down with Swinerton, the designated builders, and the architects to design the new property, I noticed a decal on the project manager’s shirt that said “Swinertongreen.com.” I asked him what that meant. He said they were on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council, and explained the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. I asked him if he thought we could obtain certification without blowing our budget. We created a checklist, took a look at our budget, and decided it was doable. Q. Is it difficult explaining that system to the guests? A. When guests are checking into the hotel we tell them, “This is your keycard, make sure you plug it in when you get to the room.” We place a lot of emphasis on the fact that all of the efforts we make and that our guests make in this hotel, in terms of going green, do not impede upon the sense of luxury. You do not have to sacrifice a firstclass experience to go green. Q. Tell me about the keycard-based energy-management system in the guestrooms. » BY BRIAN ALBRIGHT Luxury Hotelier | April 2008 | www.LuxuryHotelier.com http://www.theorchardgradenhotel.com http://www.theorchardgradenhotel.com http://www.diyses.co.uk http://Swinertongreen.com http://www.LuxuryHotelier.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Hotelier - April 2008

Luxury Hotelier - April 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Inform Network Personalities Insight Properties Inspire Deliver Innovate Development Indulge Advertisers Index Editorial Index Source Listing Dossier

Luxury Hotelier - April 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.