In today’s world with all ofthe environmental problems and concerns going on its good to see business’s stepping up to do there part. Reducing, recycling and reusing without affecting our customers stay is a mountain were willing to climb. If we ever want our children to get to see the same kind of planet that we have been privilege to see then we have to start working on it now.

The Best Western Sovereign is doing its part to make a cleaner future. Our Environmental Committee has begun implementing several programs and projects to ensure that our hotel is doing its part. On a small scale we have been reusing our old towels for different projects around the hotel. Things such as reusing the towels as rags in our maintenance shop. We have also reinforced the importance of our already existing recycling program, making sure each department has a recycling bin and is using it. We are also taking a look into our hazardous waste recycling system such as disposing of florescent light bulbs and batteries.

Our electrical conservation program is also in full swing. The lights and air conditioners are turned off in our vacant rooms after our housekeepers are finished cleaning them. Our housekeepers have also been inspecting and cleaning the air filters on our air conditioners weekly. This helps the air conditioners work with a lower use of energy. We have also begun replacing all of our appliances with Energy Star appliance product. Energy Star appliance products are all appliance products that are the same quality as other appliance products but use less energy to run. Our goal is to eventually replace our entire appliance products with Energy Star products. Our hotel is also replacing our incandescent lamps with compact florescent lamps when ever possible. The compact florescent lamps have a longer life span and also create less heat than the incandescent lamps previously in place. By changing the lamps we use energy efficient light bulbs which use 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. As for our pool area we have a retractable room which can keep heat in during the winter and let natural heat in during the summer reducing the amount of energy we use to keep the pool at a moderate temperature.

We have installed 2.5 gallon per minute showerheads or low-flow showerheads on all of our showers to reduce the amount of water we are using without affecting our customers. The maintenance department has also been checking every faucet and toilet on the property to make sure there are no leaks in the pipes also conserving a lot of water. Another way we have been conserving water is by making sure that when our housekeepers are doing laundry that they are doing full loads only this way they will not be unnecessarily wasting water.

In our offices as well as our front desk we have been reusing our scrap paper by using old paper for notes or messages and also making double sided copies as much as possible. We also have several paper bins around our hotel so that the paper that cannot be reused will be recycled. In addition to we have also been refilling our ink cartridges instead of buying new ones every time they run out and throwing away the old one. We have also been going paperless when it comes to letters, contracts, memos, messages and other forms by sending most of our information through email. To conserve electricity our computers are set to sleep during periods of non use.

As a way to cut down on the use of fuel and emissions many of our employees use public transportation or partake in car pooling. We also provide a shuttle to take multiple people to and from destinations and back again to our hotel.

With our kitchen and banquets we use all reusable plates, glasses, utensils, linens and skirting. When washing our reusable kitchen ware the staff always makes sure they’re filling each load to its max so that we can conserve as much water as possible.

Another way we go about a “Greener” hotel is by donating all of our old blankets, pillows and sheets to charity. This way we’re not throwing out any old blankets, pillows or sheets that are still useable.

We have set forth several goals for 2010 to unsure that we continue to strive for a “greener” hotel property. One of our goals is to replace all of our thermostats with digital thermostats. The digital thermostats will be programmable to the time of day. These thermostats will all be ENERGY STAR qualified programmable thermostat which will make it easy for you to save energy by offering pre-programmed settings to regulate the rooms temperature in both summer and winter — when you are asleep or when the room is vacant instead of the old thermostats which stay at the temperature it is set at all day. We also would like to install motion sensors in all of out bathrooms as to not waste electricity if no one is using them. Another goal of ours is to install 1.6 gallon toilets or Low-Flow Toilets into all of our bathrooms to conserve the use of water being used without compromising the quality of our rooms. Another one of our goals is to switch all of our cleaning supplies to non-toxic or “green cleaners”. By switching to non-toxic cleaning supplies we are not exposing our rooms to harsh bleaches or cleaners.

Recycling, reducing and reusing are now part of our hotels focuses not only helping us conserve in many areas of our hotel but also to help out our environment. We are just one hotel doing our part but if in some way we can encourage those who stay here and even other hotels to be more environmentally conscious about their own homes and properties, then our efforts will be a great success!