Green Acres
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Broadmoor sees water conservation as a means of re-enforcing the Broadmoor’s luxury brand, spokeswoman Allison Scott says. Its golf course was recently retrofitted, and the grass is now maintained with 100 percent recycled water. A full-time recycling coordinator now oversees the resort’s sprawling 2,000-acre grounds.
Recycling initiatives and the resort’s recent water, heat and cooling system upgrades have significantly cut utility costs while the switch to compact fluorescents has already paid for itself, the hotel says.
Despite the abundance of resources and the presence of a full-time recycling coordinator, however, the retrofitting process continues to be a gradual one. The Broadmoor is only just now installing recycling bins. In the meantime, the hotel leaves the placement of bins that do not complement the décor to the discretion of conference organizers.
The Cheyenne Mountain Resort, despite lacking the financial resources to green up its golf course, began with a facility-wide customized recycle bin redesign. Under the initiative of new facilities director Mike Van Duzer, an expensive but efficient recycling system was designed and installed with architectural sensitivity.
Van Duzer attributes most of the resort’s sustainability initiatives to ideas from a volunteer green team consisting of employees who range from management to housekeeping.
Staff even volunteered to scrounge area thrift stores to locate second-hand cutlery for use in the staff cafeteria. Macro upgrades, of course, continue to be done as well. About $1.5 million was spent on a BTU main boiler replacement to further reduce energy output and save money.
GREEN WITHOUT FANFARE
Important as LEED and IACC certifications are in guiding resorts through the process of greening their businesses and assuring the consumer that a certain level of research, effort and investment has been devoted toward this effort, not all hotels and resorts in Colorado place this level of importance on the formal certification process.
Bob and Suzanne Fanch, the founders and owners of Devil’s Thumb Ranch, choose not to pursue government certification, despite the eco-friendly initiatives and innovations that inspired Travel & Leisure magazine to laud the resort as one of the greenest in the country.
The Devil’s Thumb Ranch geothermal heating system provides 70 percent of the resort’s electricity, the Fanches say. Since purchasing the land seven years ago the Fanches have also stayed true to their commitment of only developing 3 percent and protecting the other 97 percent.
As the state’s ongoing battle with the pine beetle ravages mountain forests, the Fanches have developed a way to remove the hazardous dead beetle kill from their land in a way that directly contributes to mountain lodge design. Beetle-kill wood is recycled and used as interior wall paneling in their spa and main dining area.
The ranch’s original homestead house offers fine organic dining and a more casual large dining area, with European-style community tables and a three-story hexagonal fireplace made from rockslide rocks.
As there are no universal standards for defining and/or certifying state and nationwide sustainability initiatives, the resorts adapt practices as they go along. The relationship between those standards and the benefit to the environment, however, is difficult to determine.
“I don’t know that I’d shop for a hotel that has only LEED certification,” Janna Six says. “LEED tells you how green the building is but doesn’t say enough about how the hotel is operated.”
LEED certification doesn’t account for unnecessary waste a hotel might continue to generate. It doesn’t reward companies that lower their carbon footprint by renovating old buildings rather than constructing new ones. Nor does it reward creative post-construction efforts such as the reused cutlery in the Cheyenne Mountain Resort’s employee cafeteria or the Devil’s Thumb Ranch’s beetle-kill wall paneling.
At the same time, not all of the Devil’s Thumb Ranch’s beetle-kill wall paneling is local, Bob Fanch says. Although the resort tries to purchase locally whenever possible, local recycled beetle-kill wood is not always easy to obtain. Consequently, the carbon cost of transportation must be compromised. Another recycled component of the ranch’s architecture is a barn wood imported from Indiana.
“More efficient and uniform codes would save money by reducing energy and water costs, and by making it easier for companies to comply,” Six says.
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