NEWH - Fall 2012 - (Page 12)

Sustainability Point of View Delving into the Issues By Jeanne Varney hen I speak to my students at Cornell regarding issues of sustainability, one of the rst things I emphasize is that sustainability is a continuous process—every action has a reaction. Whether or not we are conscious of it, we make hundreds of choices a day and each has a “consequence.” It’s not just the car model we buy or the light bulb we use in our xtures. It’s also how e ciently we use that car. Are you organized with your grocery list and make one trip to the store that week, or do you make six trips (burning gas each time)? ink a moment about how conscious you are of turning o the lights when you leave a room (every time, some of the time, only at the end of the day)? ese every day choices add up to environmental impact and how quickly they add up is up to each of us individually. Another important consideration related to sustainability as a continuous process is that change is guaranteed, which frankly, makes it di cult for us to keep up on the latest and greatest technologies, practices, and products. If you are a glass-half-full person, then you would say that constant change is what makes the sustainability eld so exciting! More e cient, less toxic, less packaging, locally produced—all good! Like any other technical aspect of our careers, we have to make an e ort to continue to educate ourselves on the latest and greatest happenings in the business. is is where NEWH is here to help. Sustainability education continues to be in great demand from our members. NEWH remains committed to providing a wide variety of educational opportunities to its members through chapter and international events, website resources, publications, and more. We have two big events coming up in the next six months that will be valuable learning opportunities. On September 26th and 27th, NEWH will be launching its rst-ever webinar program dubbed the NEWH Green Voices Webinar Series dedicated to the subject of sustainability. One of the topics will be Meta-Trends in Sustainability—Shaping Our Future, with featured speaker Clark Brockman, principal director of sustainability for SERA Architects. I got some insight from Clark on himself and the types of issues he might discuss this fall: Can you tell our members how you came to have such a passion for sustainability? W Unique challenges include: • Managing a transient population that is di cult to engage in the few minutes/seconds that the industry has to connect with them • Managing a product that is resource intensive by its very nature • A Design-Build-Own-Operate-Maintain (DBOOM) structure that is uniquely complex among other real estate models and… Unique opportunities include: • Unprecedented access to multitudes of middle and upper income individuals, opening the way for potentially unprecedented impacts in helping to engage thoughtful, well-meaning people in becoming more aware of their personal impacts to large scale systems we all take for granted. • Potentially leading the way in fun, interactive technologies which will reduce people’s impact on the environment while at the same time return bottom-line savings to hospitality owner-operators. I don’t want to give too much away in advance of the September webinar, but what do you consider the top meta-trends in sustainability? • Transparency in many things: product toxicity, energy use, water use, etc. • Outcome-based metrics and building codes • District-scale systems, bigger than a single building (EcoDistricts) [think CityCenter project in Vegas] • Integrated project delivery methods • Occupant engagement ere are two more webinars in development for the September event. Heard of the 2030 Challenge for Products? It’s not a certi cation but a call to action to make designers, speci ers, and product manufactures aware of their carbon impacts and how to reduce them. You will hear about the purpose of the challenge and how you and your company can get involved. Another vital and hot topic is water conservation, so another webinar session will be dedicated to discussing Water: Beyond High E ciency Fixtures. High e ciency xtures can contribute to reducing properties water use but they can only go so far. is session will examine techniques including: landscaping and irrigation; grey water reuse; on-site water treatment; rain collection; and other emerging technologies to address reducing water use. And the Sustainable Hospitality Committee is working on multiple sustainability sessions for the upcoming NEWH 2013 Leadership Conference in San Francisco in January, which will tackle topics such as transparency and outcome-based metrics that you won’t want to miss. Watch for email announcements and check the www.newh.org website for information and schedule updates. ❙❘❚ Jeanne Varney is principal of Olive Hospitality Consulting, and a lecturer at Cornell University I was raised in the mountains outside of Boulder, Colorado, which gave me an extraordinary appreciation for the natural world, which, because of climate change is changing rapidly. I got my degree in (architectural) environmental design, which further punctuated my understanding of the impacts our built environments are having on environmental systems. Those of us in the hospitality industry like to consider the building type unique. Can you name a few ‘unique’ challenges that the industry faces related to sustainable design and construction? 12 www.newh.org http://www.newh.org http://www.newh.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEWH - Fall 2012

NEWH - Fall 2012
Table of Contents
News
Who’s Who
Sustainability: Point of View
Sustainability: Conference Recap
Design 101
Icon of Industry
Q&A: Christine Wasmer
Q&A: Rich Gesteland
Have You Seen?
Product Know How
On the Scene
American Atelier
Project: Scarpetta Dining Pavilion
Project: St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort
Save the Date
New Members
Partner Profiles
Ad Index

NEWH - Fall 2012