Green Living at Asheville's Grove Park Inn

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by Asheville Now
on Thursday, December 03, 2009

By Dan Dunlop on Brand Expeditions

A couple weeks ago I attended the fall conference of the Carolinas Healthcare & Public Relations Society at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. For those of you who have never been to the Grove Park Inn, it is spectacular. It's the kind of majestic inn where you'd expect to find Teddy Roosevelt vacationing. The lobby has these huge fireplaces on either end and the views of the mountains are spectacular. So, it probably shouldn't have surprised me on my recent visit when I learned about the Inn's green program.

According to the Hospitality Alliance of North Carolina, on August 6, 2007, "GPI is the only major hotel/resort in NC with a complete recycling program in place." (I read that in Stay Magazine while I was visiting the resort.) In 2008, the Grove Park Inn was awarded the 3rd place International Restaurant & Hotel Green Award in the Luxury Hotel category. They are one of the few hotels I've stayed in that has separate recycling containers in the guest rooms! They actually employ a full-time recycling manager.

Here's what the Inn has published about its recycling program:

"GPI has an extensive history of implementing a comprehensive recycling program as corporate policy. Currently, GPI captures an estimated 80% of all recyclable materials (excluding organics) from hotel operations including guest rooms. This translates into several hundred tons of recycled materials being returned to productive use and not going into landfills.

We are committed to conserving resources and proving energy conservation practices which are wise resource management, good for the environment, and good for the bottom line."

When I arrived in the parking garage I noticed workers painting the wall near the elevators. It turned out they were painting special signs to denote Hybrid parking. They had created four new hybrid spaces. To be honest, during my stay at the property, I didn't see a single hybrid vehicle parked in one of those spots, but their prominent location next to the elevators sends a clear message to guests that the Grove Park Inn places a high value on sustainable practices.

Over the years, the Inn has also added green roof features. Quoting from Greenroofs.com: "The fireside lounge at the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa (GPI) expands the green roof square footage at the GPI and demonstrates the GPI's commitment to green hotel practices and building. The green roof is most visible from terraces and some guest rooms and integrates the lounge into the surrounding landscape." The roof was produced by Living Roofs, Inc.

In 2008, the Inn won First Place in the National Employee Transportation Coordinator Champion Awards for its employee bus pass program, and other efforts to reduce employee automobile usage. Here's some additional information about the Inn's green programs that I gathered from its submission to the 2009 Sustainable North Carolina Awards:

• They donate various items that are no longer of use to the Resort; this includes furniture, television sets, tennis balls, and flower pots.

• To reduce energy consumption, they use low-wattage, compact fluorescent light bulbs, occupancy sensors in meeting rooms and variable-speed drives on cooling towers and air-handler blowers.

• GPI practices integrated pest management on the golf course and grounds, which addresses proper pruning techniques, natural repellents and pesticides targeting individual species instead of broad spectrum applications.

• Employee hallways have recycling receptacles for plastic, aluminum and glass products, together with paper recycling bins located in various office areas and employee hallways.

• The Laundry facility uses environmentally friendly Petroleum Dry Cleaning machines and an Ozone washing system. This allows us to wash 85% of our laundry in cold water, which drastically reduces the need to use boilers to heat water. Because they use far fewer chemicals to clean linens in cold water, the linens sustain less damage and last longer.

• State-of-the-art boilers for hot water allow them to shut down larger boilers designed for heat, saving a significant amount of natural gas.

• They utilize low-flow showers and toilets.

• All employee transport buses are bio-diesel.

• Motion sensor lights in all meeting rooms save energy. All of their indoor pools are saline which are healthier, use less hazardous chemicals and are far less corrosive on equipment.

• Indoor pools at The Spa are heated by pool paks, which require no gas to heat water.

• They have converted all guestroom lamps from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs which consume much less energy and last ten times longer.

• They have installed a green, 'living roof' over their Spa.

Impressive information. I found it interesting that when I asked GPI employees about their green program, they didn't have any literature or a page on their website where they could direct me for more information. To gather this data, I had to surf around the Internet on my own. They've got a great story to tell and ought to do more to share it with their guests, employees and potential guests. If they've got green information on their website, it is not easy to access. Their green program represents a value that is important to a large percentage of the general population; it seems a shame to keep it a secret. I love the Grove Park Inn and these practices make me love it even more! For more information on the Grove Park Inn go to http://www.groveparkinn.com.

Content Source: dandunlop.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/green-living-at-ashevilles-grove-park-inn/

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