Pittsburgh Fairmont is city's first LEED certified green hotel

The only LEED certified green hotel in Pittsburgh is the new Pittsburgh Fairmont, and it proves that green can be beautiful. Here’s some of what makes this luxury hotel so green that it has been awarded the Gold level of green:

Lighting — energy efficient LED and compact flourescent bulbs reduce energy use at the Pittsburgh Fairmont by enough to power about 50 households a year. Also, equipment and appliances are Energy Star compliant, which means they use 20-30 percent less energy than non-certified machinery.

Water — reduced-flow showers, automatic sensors in sinks in public areas and other fixtures save more than 900,000 gallons of water a year.

Green construction materials — All paints, carpeting, fabrics, and such have no or low emissions of volatile organic compounts (VOC), and most bedding in guestrooms is made from organic or recycled fiber. That’s is also good news for guests with allergies. Woodwork and flooring is made from timber that’s been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which means it comes from sustainably harvested forests.

Fairmont Pittsburgh bedding uses organic and recycled fibers

Food — The hotel chef features local and organic ingredients in the restaurant and bar. Food waste is treated by a high-tech enzyme digester, and fryer oil is recycled locally into biodiesel.

InterContinental Times Square is NYC's largest LEED certified hotel

The brand new InterContinental New York Times Square Hotel is the largest hotel in New York City to achieve LEED certification, as well as the largest new hotel in The Big Apple to open since 2002.  The 36-story, 607 room hotel is a shining example of eco-friendly green luxury.

Floor-to-ceiling windows let in the view — which includes Times Square, the Hudson River and Central Park — and cuts down on heating requirements in winter and the need for lights during the day. Green roofs on the second and seventh floors feature low-maintenance plants that retain heat in winter and absorb sunlight and heat in summer. Motion sensors in stairwells and storage areas reduce electric usage, along with use of LED and flourescent lighting in guestrooms.

Housekeeping uses only green, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, and the hotel restaurants — including a high-end Todd English restaurant – are composting food scraps and waste.  The green IntercContinental Times Square New York was constructed with 20% recycled materials, most of which was from within 500 miles of Times Square, which reduced both transportation costs and the pollution associated with moving construction materials long distances.  Eco-friendly green paints, carpeting and other materials, with reduced volatile compounds, are used throughout for better air quality.

The Fairfield Inn and Suites chain is targeted at family, senior leisure and frequent business travelers who also like to save the green in their wallets.  Included in the already-affordable room rate, guests get free internet connections and free breakfast.
 
Here is some of what makes this new hotel a green travel star:

* The breakfast area is lit by solar tracking skylights

* The courtyard lawn is not grass but turf created out of recycled tires, and the plants are watered with recycled water

* Eco-friendly guest amenities, including biodegradable “greenware” coffee cups

* Behind the scenes, employees will be cleaning and maintaining the building according to the ‘Green Housekeeping’ protocol set by Marriott, which operates the Fairfield chain.  Marriott also operates Ritz-Carlton hotels.

The hotel is located on the site of the former Baltimore Brewing Company, locally famous for brewing DeGroen’s beer, and historic Brewer’s Park.   The brewery’s old grain silo and one of its brewing tanks were salvaged and are being used to collect and store rainwater draining from the roof to water the trees and flowers.  That’s double recycling — reclycling the silo and the water, too.   I’m resisting the impulse to call this green beer.

The hotel’s ideal location, on Baltimore Heritage Walk, let’s you walk to 20 historic sites and museums in the Inner Harbor, Little Italy, Historic Jonestown, and City Center. To me, the most important of these is the Star Spangled Banner Flag House, where the original American flag was sewn.   

Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, N.C., is LEED Platinum

How appropriate — the hotel with the world’s top green rating is in the city of Greensboro. It’s the Proximity Hotel, one of the few hotels anywhere to achieve the LEED Platinum rating.  Don’t think you have to give up luxury to travel green — this hotel has an AAA Four Diamond rating.

Platinum and diamond — that’s a great combination.

The Priximity Hotel was built to use 40% less energy and 30% less water than a comparable hotel, and features such state-of-the-art technologies as the first installation in North America of the regenerative drive for Otis’ Gen2 elevator.  This system reduces energy usage by capturing energy and feeding it back into the building’s internal electrical grid.