Marriott Designates April as 'Environmental Awareness Month'
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Marriott Designates April as 'Environmental Awareness Month'
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Category: Worldwide -
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2006-04-13
2,700 Hotels Worldwide Invited to Clean Up Their Communities and Conserve Energy as Company Continues its Commitment to the Environment
Marriott International (NYSE: MAR) has designated April as “Environmental Awareness Month,” inviting its more than 2,700 hotels worldwide, along with their associates, owners and guests, to engage in initiatives which help preserve their natural surroundings and reduce resource consumption. The event builds on Marriott’s award-winning commitment to the environment and gives hotels an opportunity to continually improve efforts toward cleaner air, recycling, and water and energy conservation.
“This month is a way for hotels to renew their existing energy conservation campaigns and look at new and different ways to support our environmental commitment,” said Pat Maher, senior vice president of Engineering for North America, Marriott International.
“Protecting the environment and conserving energy make good business sense and are the right things to do, both locally and globally,” said Gary Hurst, senior vice president of International Engineering, Marriott International.
Eco-themed competitions, including a poster contest, are being offered at hotels worldwide to generate momentum among associates. The following provides highlights of other hotel initiatives from around the world:
Egypt - On April 8, 275 associates from seven Marriott hotels in Egypt cleaned up trash on the streets and beaches to create a cleaner and healthier environment.
Jordan - Associates at all three Marriott hotels in Jordan will host a roundtable discussion with an energy consultant; learn more about local eco-systems through the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature during Earth Day on April 22; participate in clean-up efforts in their local communities; and contribute funds to care for the endangered species in a local wildlife reserve.
United Kingdom - At Marriott’s regional office in London, a newly formed environmental committee is launching an awareness campaign among the office’s 400 associates to increase recycling, decrease waste, and conserve energy.
United States – The engineering team at the New York Marriott Marquis, which in the last year has installed new energy-efficient lighting throughout the hotel and re-commissioned its air handling units for better air quality and lower energy consumption, will install lighting motion sensors in the hotels' forty linen closets.
The San Francisco Marriott, adjacent to the Moscone Convention Center, is the first hotel in the city to have a compactor dedicated to composting foodstuffs, and its associates are putting it to good use. They are more than halfway to reaching their goal of composting a million pounds of material from the hotel’s restaurants and cafeterias. On average, 85 percent of the hotel’s food refuse can be composted and reused to help revitalize the soil within the region. Last year, the hotel composted half-a-million pounds of material – enough to fill its lobby from floor to ceiling.
In the Washington, D.C., metro area, approximately 100 associates from Marriott Headquarters and nearby Marriott hotels participated in the Potomac Watershed Clean-up Day on April 8. Volunteers removed trash and debris from the shorelines of Theodore Roosevelt Island, a national landmark protected by the National Park Service.
Marriott’s commitment to the environment has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which named the company an ENERGY STAR “Partner of the Year” for two consecutive years and also awarded its coveted Energy Star label to 183 Marriott-branded hotels. Specifically, Marriott was recognized for saving more than 83 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electric energy consumption —the equivalent of lighting Washington, D.C., for three months; and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 68,000 tons annually—the equivalent of removing 15,000 cars from the road or planting 1,500,000 trees per year.
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