"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Chicago’s greenest hotels

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

I slept better last night than I have in years because Mayor Daley sent me an electronic lullabye about the greening of Chicago Hotels.

As it turns out, our town leads the nation in green-certified hotels. That sounds like a load of PR hooey but, to someone like me who literally must turn the mind away from such nearly-paralyzing thoughts such as "how wasteful is it to throw away all the little soaps after just one use!?!?!?!" when I travel (which is very often) it’s pretty darn cool.

We have five Green Seal Certified Hotels (none of which offered me a free night’s stay…yet, ahem…)

1. Hotel Monaco Chicago

2. Hotel Burnham

3. Hotel Allegro Chicago

4. InterContinental Chicago

5. Talbott Hotel

In the oddly dated and titled press release "CITY RECOGNIZES ENVIRONMENTAL leadership OF HOTELS: Chicago Leads Nation in Green Seal Certified Hotels" one of the city’s many, many PR people walked us through the myriad waste-reduction efforts that those hotels tracked and measured to get on the list of twenty five Chicago hotels trying to get certified (see list at end).

To quote the press release: "The Green Hotels Initiative challenges hotels to obtain Green Seal certification, an environmental lodging standard with requirements in waste minimization, energy efficiency, water conservation, waste water management and green procurement."

Blah, blah, blah…getting to the good stuff, here’s a choice sampling of the ultra-hard-core, didn’t-even-know-such-things-existed measures each of these hotels took to earn Da Mayer’s green stamp of approval:

Hotel Monaco Chicago

 

Conducted an extensive amenity study to examine the smallest practical size that amenity bottles could be based on the average use of guests.

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Hotel Monaco reduces paper consumption by having a paperless check in at the front desk, no paperwork to sign, and all printers for office use are set to print double-sided.   

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The hotel is committed to using eco-friendly paints – low VOC and free of heavy metals.

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Hotel Burnham

 

The hotel minimizes disposable service ware by using durable, ceramic cups in guest rooms and the lobby.

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All coffee served to guests is shade grown, organic or fair trade.

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Hotel Burnham uses non-phosphate, nontoxic, biodegradable laundry detergents and cleaning products by Sierra Environmental, a leading provider of natural, environmentally safe, commercial-grade cleaning products

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All lights that are on 24 hours a day such as hall ways, the lobby, and exit signs are energy efficient. The Burnham Hotel has established a comprehensive 5 year plan to retrofit all lighting.

Hotel Allegro Chicago 

The hotel has recycling receptacles in all guest rooms. The Hotel Allegro along with Hotel Burnham and Hotel Monaco are part of a collection of Kimpton Hotels, which is the first hotel company to start recycling in guest rooms nationwide.

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The hotel recycles clothing wire hangers from dry cleaning ~ about 300 - 500 hangers per month

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Hotel Allegro uses dual purpose nylon dry cleaning bags.  These bags are used to send clothing to the dry cleaners, and the dry cleaners use the same type of bags to send the hotel the dry-cleaned clothes.

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Uses suppliers that take back reusable packaging and shipping pallets.

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InterContinental Chicago

 

Earlier this year, the InterContinental was awarded EPA’s ENERGY STAR Label, which means the building achieved a score of 75 or higher in energy efficiency for a building of its size and use.

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The hotel purchases Green-e certified renewable energy credits for 50% of the energy the hotel consumes annually.

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The hotel installed refillable amenity dispensers in one floor to test the product and gather customer comments.

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The hotel uses solar powered water faucets in public washrooms.

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The Talbott Hotel

The hotel donates left over food from banquets to the employee cafeteria and minimizes a majority of food wastes.

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The hotel’s landscape company uses organic insecticides, fertilizers and biocides.

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The hotel purchases wind energy credits to offset 100% of their electrical footprint.

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The Talbott Hotel implements a "Greenificent Lifestyle" program for guests and employees.  If guest push "Eco Mode" on their thermostat, the housekeeping staff will replace bed and bath linens every other day. The thermostat will automatically adjust when the guest is not in the room. By opting for this program, the hotel rewards guests by offsetting the guest’s household electricity consumption for a month.

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Employees were given 2 free CFLs and an offset for one month of their household electricity consumption to encourage sustainable living.

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It ain’t easy being green – it costs a lot of money, in fact. Who knows just how much solar-powered water faucets or eco-friendly paint costs? But most businesses know that in the long run being a good steward of the earth’s resources pays off.

I’m not even going to lie and act like I could afford to stay at these places so I can show my support for the amazing lengths they go to in order to save precious resources, but that’s completely beside the fact.

As this sort of intense attention to environmentally-friendly detail spreads, eventually even the sort of one-star joints I stay in when I’m footing the bill will use less chlorine, not wash my towels every night by default, and let me use each little bar of soap until it’s gone.

***

Chicago Green Seal Audited Hotels include:

1.            Drake Hotel

2.            Essex Inn

3.            Fairmont

4.            Four Points Hotel

5.            Four Seasons

6.            Hard Rock Hotel

7.            Hilton Chicago

8.            Hotel Allegro

9.            Hotel Burnham

10.       Hotel Monaco

See the rest of the list here. Founded in 1989, Green Seal is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that provides science-based environmental certification standards that are credible, transparent, and essential in an increasingly educated and competitive marketplace. Their industry knowledge and standards help manufacturers, purchasers, and end users alike make responsible choices that positively impact business behavior and improve quality of life.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Iran’s offensive in Latin America: the Chicago connection

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

How does one tiny little country spread the word about a certain not-so-little country that wants to see it wiped off the map?

It shouts from the rafters and knocks on a lot of doors, in a lot of countries, making one-on-one connections with regular people.

Tuesday morning, as the world media outlets were atwitter about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ill-health – and about 48 hours before Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on Turkey to isolate, rather than embrace, Ahmadinejad’s overtures – the Honorable Eyal Sela, Israel’s Ambassador to Ecuador, held a roundtable discussion at a prestigious downtown law firm. The topic: Iran’s growing influence in Latin America.

Much like what Sela does in Ecuador, he was in Chicago – the third largest Hispanic population in the country – making the rounds, talking to exclusive groups of business leaders, community organization heads, journalists, and politicians about the growing threat that rarely gets any media play in the U.S. but is vitally important to those of us who send money and travel back to visit family in any of the Latin American countries.

And with approximately 1.8 million Latinos arrived or descended from 20 or so Latin American countries in the Chicago metro region there are plenty of us who should care what’s going on back there.

Sure, most of us know that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hates the U.S. and counts Iranian President Ahmadinejad as one of his very favorite pals. I’ve written about China pumping money into Latin America and their refusal to enter into U.S.-backed sanctions against Iran. Then there’s the whole Russia/Iran relationship (which is a whole separate column as it relates to Latin America).

Most of us knew that there’s major money being swapped between the two countries for various oil-related goodies and non-oil-related infrastructure, but Sela gave us a laundry list of chilling indicators of Iran’s growing Latin American influence that even I hadn’t had a handle on.

Representatives from the City of Chicago, the National Strategy Forum, and several powerful Hispanic business and community organizations were treated to some rarely-heard insights.

"Venezuela is one thing, we know all that part of it. But look at Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, what’s happening there…" Sela said. "The people in these countries don’t know what Iran is looking for. What they want is really a better economic situation - they want to export their goods. They don’t know how that legitimization empowers Iran."

The highlights:

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There are plans in the works to establish an Arabic broadcast television network to spread news and opinion across Latin-America.

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Islam is becoming one of the fastest growing religions in Latin America by making inroads in poor, underserved indigineous communities previously targeted by Evangelical Christians.

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Iran-backed Hezbollah agents are active across Latin America, especially in the tri-border areas of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Not surprisingly they’re involved in drug smuggling rings and, increasingly, in shoring up routes for direct access to the United States. "Venezuela is the direct entry point to Latin America and they are the direct entrance point to the U.S." Sela said.

·

There are over $20 Billion worth of trade and investment deals between Iran and various Latin American countries. There are daily direct flights between Venezuela and Iran and a keen Iranian interest in Bolivia and Ecuador’s uranium deposits.

From Sela’s perch, though he’s anticipating a bad-news move from Ecuador’s University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign-educated President Rafael Correa – the word on the street is that he’s planning on taking a make-nice trip to Tehran in the coming weeks – things are still moderate outside of Venezuela. And he feels Israel’s band of traveling advocates are making inroads.

"[For now, in most of Latin America] there is no hate for the United States," Sela told me, "there is a different perspective from Venezuela. But the problem is that in Ecuador [and across Latin America] people don’t know what’s going on. There’s not an ideological connection with Iran rather, the people, they know they want better standards of living in their communities but they don’t understand at what price it’s coming. But they need to know."

"[One positive is that] nobody wants to know see Hezbollah in their backyard," Sela said. "Another is that we are good friends. Bilateral relations between Israel and the Latin American countries are very good and it’s not like I’m not coming to criticize to tell stubborn countries what to do. The Israelis are coming as friends to tell them our perspective and for the most part they are listening."

We listened as well. And after a round of speculating how the next President would impact the United States’ relationship with Venezuela, Iran, Latin America as a whole and other big players like Russia and China, we got the pitch as well.

"Talk to your communities, talk to your families, ask what they’re seeing and tell them what you know," Sela told our band, knowing almost every one of us had family in Mexico, Central and South America.

I’m visiting my family in Ecuador next July and I know I’ll certainly be asking different questions and looking around with a new perspective.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Don’t supply my demand: high gas prices are good!

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

I love $4-a-gallon gas. Driving by a local station yesterday I saw that it had gone down to $3.85 and I was bummed.

According to recent reports expensive fill-ups have curbed Americans’ insatiable desire for feeding their big gas-guzzling cars. The Energy Information Administration said in its July 31 inventory report that U.S. gasoline supplies fell by 3.5 million barrels last week resulting in an expected (estimated) 400,000 barrels gas supplies increase.

It doesn’t stop there, that same report found U.S. demand for energy is falling across most sectors. For instance the inventories of heating oil and diesel rose by 2.4 million barrels, more than the 1.8 million barrels expected, according to the EIA report.

Have you heard that researchers with the National Safety Council recently reported a 9 percent drop in motor vehicle deaths overall through May 2008 compared with the first five months of 2007? That was just overall; they clocked a drop of 18 percent in March and 14 percent in April, harkening back to rates last seen during the Arab oil embargo in 1974. We all know correlation doesn’t guarantee causation but let’s not kid ourselves, people are driving less – you put two and two together.

Other unintended consequences: higher production costs to farm the food are adding to the global food insecurity problem. It’s gotten so bad in Bolivia that in an unprecedented move, cocaine farmers are actually choosing to cut back on planting coca, and choosing to cultivate rice instead.

Also spotted: slimmer, healthier people. According to the Federal Highway Administration, since November 2007, Americans have driven 40.5 billion fewer miles, compared to the same period a year earlier. We logged 9.6 billion fewer miles in May than in May 2007. And the bicycle stores are feelin’ it; reports from all over the country are saying they can’t keep bikes in stock. I recently ran into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in over a year. I said "Wow, you look thin – lost some weight?" He replied, "Yeah, I’ve been riding my bike everywhere."

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas is great! I didn’t say it’s not horribly painful to pay for, and I’m not happy prices are crippling people making minimum wage rather than just inconveniencing the affluent, but there’s no denying that high gas prices are destroying demand and people and car manufacturers, who are bustin’ hump to manufacture more energy efficient cars are making changes for the better.

Sadly, superstar investment bank Goldman Sachs speculated that weakness in U.S. energy demand is "transient rather than permanent," because the fundamentals of falling oil production and rising world energy consumption remain intact.

We’re on the verge of probably the greatest innovations in pursuit of scalable solar, wind, sugar and other renewable power sources ever even as politicians who are financed by the just-bought-a-new-Hummer crowd are instead looking to lift the 26-year-old moratorium on offshore drilling so we can comfortably use more U.S., rather than foreign, oil.

Regardless of whatever schemes emerge to feed our need for gas-guzzling speed, we’ve already turned a corner – I don’t think anyone not wearing bellbottoms was seriously worried about the environment back in the seventies – and energy conservation won’t fall off the radar. And – drilling or not – we’re never going to see buck-a-gallon gas again.

Ride the storm out: that $4 dollar a gallon pain in the pump is more blessing than curse.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

‘Mer-cans as far as the eyes can see

"Pregunta del Dia by Esther J. Cepeda"

"P-d-D" translates from Espanol into "Question of the Day" and today’s comes from Julia, a faithful Carbondale, IL, reader who emailed:

Q. Last week I hosted my annual Group Study Exchange Team through Rotary International. Over the past few years I have hosted teams from Germany, Italy, Philippines, India and the latest was from Brazil.  I usually have one of the team members stay in our house.  This year I had two young women from Brazil (both age 24 and lawyers) and they told me something that I had not heard before. 

It seems that other citizens of the Americas (North or South) think it is somewhat arrogant for people in the US to refer to themselves as "Americans." Their view, if I understand it, is that all of us in the Americas are Americans and people in the US shouldn’t have title or a patent on the designation. 

I wondered if you were aware of this and had a opinion, comment, etc. My question was "If you don’t call people in the United States ‘Americans’, then what do you call them… "Unitarians" ?!!!!!

A. Ahh, Julia – oceanchild, seashell eyes, windy smile – you’ve stumbled into a particularly prickly point of contention. This one goes into the same bucket as "don’t call me Spanish, I’m not from Spain," but I’ve digressed.

My best pal, Wikipedia, defines the Americas thusly: "the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 14% of the human population (about 900 million people). The Americas may alternatively be referred to as ‘America’ however, ‘America’ may be ambiguous, as it can refer either to the entire landmass or to the United States of America."

Here’s another one for you, our neighbor to the south? Well, down there it’s officially, as well as commonly, known as "los Estados Unidos Mexicanos," according to mami Cepeda. Yep, "the United States of Mexico." I won’t bore you with a wobbly recitation of all the states that make up that union or, as an additional example, those of the Republic of the United States of Brazil.

Take away Mexico and you still have approximately 34 million Canadians, 40 million Central Americans, and 371 million South Americans sporting all manner of non-U.S. American pride.

Let’s join hands, Julia, we’re all Americans!

And, yeah, it bugs the heck out of many, many of those 445 million Americans who don’t live somewhere between L.A. and New Yawk that "United States of America" citizens – known globally as believing that they alone are the center of the universe – don’t know or care enough about their continent-mates to know that Americans come in all different languages and cultures from across countless borders.

But don’t fret, there’s no need to revert to something as inartful as "Unitarians"! It’s been my experience that people in other countries of the Americas don’t want Americans to stop calling themselves "Americans," they just want Americans to know that there are plenty of other Americans out there and a great many of them love mami and apple flan, or Écouter and pomme tarte, even if they do get teary-eyed at something other than the "Star Spangled Banner" at sporting events.

Capice!?

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Voices of reason

by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s comes from several different readers who keep asking:

Q. Can you believe these gas prices?! It’s highway robbery.

A. Yes I can. No it’s not. Gas prices are not that bad. Heck, I remember whining about it in 1997 when it bumped up to $1.25 – I stopped complaining long ago.

In summer of 2003 I took average gas price data from 1970 to 2003 and adjusted it for inflation and found that compared to cars, chicken wings, and other items in a basket of goods, gas was still really cheap. (Don’t ask why, I’m weird like that and I love statistics.)

Fast forward five years to the week before Memorial Day weekend 2008 and people are gnashing their teeth and weeping about gas prices. Though I keep telling people that not only is the rise in gas prices not that bad – it’s a natural market correction that’s going a long way toward weaning us off our dependence on a non-renewable resource – no one ever believes me.

So thank you, Energy Tribune. Robert Bryce, this publication’s managing editor just wrote a lovely piece on slate.com about the reality of today’s gas prices, which he says are dirt cheap compared to prices in many other countries. I quote:

"When measured on an inflation-adjusted basis, the current price of gasoline is only slightly higher — about 20 percent — than it was in 1922. According to the Energy Information Administration, in 1922, gasoline cost the current-day equivalent of $3.11."

"Today, gasoline is selling for about $3.77 per gallon. Given the ever-increasing global demand for oil products — during the first three months of this year, China’s oil consumption jumped 16.5 percent — and the increasing costs associated with finding, producing and refining crude oil, it makes sense that today’s motorists are paying more for their motor fuel than their grandparents and great-grandparents did."

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks Bob!

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com