Home Energy Management Earthkeeping a Passion at Historic Brown Palace Hotel

Earthkeeping a Passion at Historic Brown Palace Hotel

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DENVER—The piece-of-pie shaped Brown Palace Hotel, a fixture in the heart of Denver since 1892, has been undergoing a green transformation the last couple of years that has caught the eye of many. The 241-room property won the Good Earthkeeping Award in 2013 from the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Assn. and the Good Earthkeeping Award in 2014 from the American Hotel and Lodging Assn. While dabbling in sustainability for a number of years—bee hives have been on the hotel roof as part of the hotel’s Bee Royalty Initiative since 2009—it was in October 2012 when good things really started to happen. That is when Brenna St. Onge was hired as Executive Housekeeper. She brought a passion for sustainability to her job and it was a year ago that she was promoted to Assistant Director of Rooms and Chair of Sustainability.

As anyone who owns a historic structure more than a century old knows, adding efficiencies is not always easy. Take the Brown Palace Hotel’s shell as one example. The sandstone blocks leak energy through their many holes. A hole sealing project, almost half done, has resulted in “huge savings,” St. Onge says.

The Green Key certified hotel is one year into a three-year HVAC system upgrade. Guestrooms were just finished. Once completed, heating and cooling will be monitored by a centralized energy management system and 61,000 gallons of water will be saved annually. Incandescents and CFLs are being phased out and replaced with LEDs. A laundry project called “Aquanomic” has resulted in a 54 percent energy reduction and 60 percent water reduction for the wash cycle. Low-temperature chemicals enable the hotel to reduce wash steps, water usage and water temperature. The hotel washes 200,000 pounds of linen every month.

Simple Steps Make a Difference

Also contributing to energy savings are simple things, St. Onge says. “We ask associates to turn computers and lights off. After 15 minutes of inactivity, computers are booted down.”

In the last two years, a period when occupancy increased 19 percent, electricity consumption fell by 26 percent per occupied room. Natural gas consumption fell by 34 percent per occupied room.

Two new dishwashers are saving the hotel 1,000 gallons of water a day. Toilets, aerators and showerheads are all low-flow. Because the hotel has its own artesian well that goes 750 feet into the ground, it runs mostly independent of city water. Well water is used in guestrooms and public areas.

The Brown Palace Hotel has made major strides in waste management over the last two years as well. The diversion rate increased by 390 percent from 2012 to 2014. “In August we hit an 89 percent diversion rate for that month,” St. Onge says. “Year to date we are running just under 60 percent.” In-room recycling began in 2012 and it is offered in public spaces and meeting rooms. In April of this year the hotel began a composting program. Employees are frequently reminded about recycling best practices through signage, training and fun activities. A sustainability awareness center outside the employee locker room includes containers for recycling batteries, small electronics and light bulbs.

“We even go metal scrapping around the hotel,” St. Onge says. “We take it to a local scrap yard and turn it in for money.”

Green Meeting Package Offered

The hotel offers a Green Meeting Package that helps event planners set goals to make their events more sustainable. Each meeting room has its own recycling bin. The carbon impact of meetings can be offset and planners can arrange for options like water stations only upon request, green menus, green breaks, and B Cycle bikes for guests to use. Green Meeting Packages have experiential pieces with them,” St. Onge says. For example, guests can learn about beekeeping up on the roof of the hotel. The hotel is currently pursuing green meeting certification.

Speaking of the rooftop bees, the hotel sells pure raw honey in its spa and gift shop and St. Onge designed a new in-room amenity line—soap and shampoo—that has the hotel’s own honey in it. The plastic used in the amenity containers, St. Onge says, biodegrades easily. Also on the rooftop, tower gardens installed this past summer provide small quantities of herbs, lettuce and tomatoes for the property’s chefs.

“The gardens were very successful this summer,” St. Onge says. “We want to do a larger garden next year.”

Keeping sustainability initiatives moving forward is an eight-person sustainability committee. The approximately 500 employees are all trained on sustainability and all new hires get at least 20 minutes of sustainability training early on in training.

Sustainable Purchasing Policy

The hotel has a sustainable purchasing policy that encourages buying local, organic foods and reducing chemical waste. “We require our suppliers to supply us with sustainability policies,” St. Onge says.

In 2013, the Brown Palace Hotel experienced a 900 metric ton reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The hotel uses Green Hotels Global to track emissions on a per occupied room basis.

The hotel’s general manager leads the Brown Palace CARES program, a volunteer initiative supporting efforts such as the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The hotel adopted the nearby Civic Center Park as well as several flower beds within the park and has committed to keeping it clean for everyone to enjoy.

On its website, the Brown Palace Hotel includes a long list of other green steps it has taken. Be sure to review that list.

Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

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