Innovations: From Concept to Commitment, The Evolution of Sustainability in Hospitality

speaker-0: This is Hospitality Unpacked, powered by N.E.W.H.

We're diving into the trends, ideas, and people shaping the hospitality industry, from design and innovation to the business behind the brands. Today's segment is the design, the creative visions, materials, and spaces that define how we experience hospita- Hello, welcome everybody to the latest episode of Hospitality Unpacked. I've got a couple great people here with us. I'm Dallas Bentley.

I'm formerly the VP of Education for N.E.W.H.'

s International Board of Directors, currently the VP of Finance, and my day job, I'm one of the owners of Married and Drapery. Forgive me, I'm getting over a cold. I think David's gonna join me in that front, so. If you hear any hacking, just ignore it.

But we're here despite being under the weather and surrounded by snow, if you're in David's situation, we're here to celebrate an important milestone for NEWH. Green Voice is what we're going to talk about today. It is the sustainability educational program for NEWH and we're celebrating a really big milestone. It has been 15 years.

Green Voice is a teenager. And we have a couple people here who were there to bring Green Voice into the world and get it through its infancy. And we also have a couple of people here now very active in the Green Voice environment. So I wanted to welcome everyone to the podcast.

We have Dina Bellin. Would you share your name and where you work? Yeah, sure. I'm Dina Bellon, and I am the president of State Pineapple Hotels.

⁓ boutique hotel owner operator brand based out of the Pacific Northwest, which is a sunny, beautiful day here. But we do have hotels all across the United States. So Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, Chicago, and New York, all urban city center locations. And sustainability is certainly at the heart of my personal mission and as well as our business.

How about you, David? Hi, I'm David Mahood. I'm the founder and principal of Olive Designs, a sustainability strategizing and training company. We've been around since 1998, although initially we were in the manufacturing side.

Yeah, I'm calling in from sunny but snowy Beverly, Massachusetts. Happy to talk about something that I'm very proud of, which is GreenVoy. So looking forward to a deeper discussion. Great to have you and we have Rachel who's also up in the northeast.

Rachel? speaker-1: Yes, it feels like a beach day at 30 degrees. So... Hi everyone, my name is Rachel Birkin.

I am the N.E.W.H.

Green Voice National Chair and I've been in this position for the last couple of years, four or five years. And outside of that, I am the Senior Sustainability Manager at Rockfond. We are acoustical ceiling tile manufacturers and sustainability is really what I've dedicated my career to and you know, working on the manufacturing side. I really enjoy working with materials and products, but also, you know, with the consultants and with the owners to make sure that we're providing the best products, you know, for what they're looking for.

So it's been a really great opportunity being on this committee and helping to drive sustainability in the hospitality industry. speaker-0: I've learned a lot from Rachel the last couple of years and we've been really, really lucky to have her come. So I'm excited to hear more about how GreenVoice got off the ground and where we've gotten to now. So I wanted to start a little bit with David.

So David, you were the principal of all of designs. You were a vendor. Now you do consulting. Where did GreenVoice come from?

How are you motivated to get it started? It started in 2011 because we were approached by HD Expo They had done a program around sustainability called Green Day, which actually was the day before the show started. It was successful. I think it had a three or four year run, if I remember correctly, but they approached us, and EWH as an organization, to see if we could assist in some kind of programming for sustainability.

So I actually was at a Green Build show, another trade show dedicated to sustainability up in Toronto. And one of the things I thought was interesting that they did, they brought in some fantastic speakers and they did a big conference luncheon with the speakers and then they broke them out and had them available on the floor and doing one-on-one interviews at different booths at the trade show floor and I thought wow that's an interesting way to basically tap into the talent and double up a little bit so we approached HD Expo with that idea which we named Green Voice Conversations and we would bring in four experts that would address different areas of sustainability and then we would have them one-on-one conversation with somebody from our sustainability committee and do that in conjunction with the trade show hours, not the day in advance.

We didn't have the benefit of that so we just sort of filtered it into the show and early on it was very interesting because that wasn't a program, it wasn't something that had been done at HDX about that point so we were really proud. We brought in some really interesting speakers and then we would also have a luncheon, a breakout and with all the four speakers and I moderated the first ones. I think Dina moderated some after that. But in any event, that was kind of how it got started.

⁓ so it was first done at HD Expo and I think our first one was 2012. And then subsequently we did other shows. We went on to BDNY and we did ⁓ Neocon one year and some other events. So that's kind of how Green Voice got started.

But we had a very active sustainability committee. back then. we had a dozen people representing our sustainability committee and including Dina. And to go back a little bit farther, we did have a discussion internally and people like Jillian Vendresser and Gene Varney and Cliff Tuttle and those people were pushing for sustainability within NWH.

So our committee got formed. And from that, we developed positions within NWH, including on the board. And ⁓ Green Voice was really a it spawned from those moments. So that's the origin of Green Voice.

So Dina, were there from the sounds like pretty early on as well. What do you remember from those times? Yeah, it's funny because I think we look back on those times and there's a lot that's changed. There's still a lot that the same, but we would get asked, uh, green voice, is it about painting buildings green?

Like, what does that mean? Right? These are, you know, early days when all of this. didn't have the lexicon didn't resonate with the broader audience.

think we talked a lot about and part of why ⁓ David's idea was so great was at the time sustainability people were talking to sustainability people a lot. Right? was preaching to the choir. And that's why, although Green Day was amazing for all of us, it wasn't engaging the broader audience of professionals and consultants and owners and operators that were coming to HD.

And so I think we really had a big desire to talk to those that didn't know a lot about sustainability and start engaging them in the conversation. We felt like that was how we were going to make a bigger difference and drive the message better. So it was it was a really exciting time and those conversations even if we just grabbed somebody for you know five or ten minutes as they were walking by if they didn't even plan to attend the conversation but they're walking by down the hallway and saw the discussion going on and stopped and listened for ten minutes and took away something interesting then we knew that was a win.

I think you know we can certainly say that Green Voice was instrumental in our little segment of the market, right? The design world and hospitality to really drive the conversation around sustainability. So kudos to David for creating the idea. And one other thing, if I can jump on that one, it was sort of my, you know, crazy idea, but I thought it would be fun to bring somebody from a little outside of the hospitality industry to share their expertise.

So we would bring in people that were foresters, land management experts. We brought in a vermicompost expert. We brought in a guy that was the principal of a climate research center. We brought in a marine biologist.

We brought in a number of people that came from the science scientific side of this, who could discuss sustainability and help to broaden that. Like Dina was saying, we're trying to reach a greater audience. so by bringing somebody scientifically based, was also kind of very unique those conversations because they would be talking about something you would think a little bit different, but yet they're all connected. so I found having somebody come from a scientific background really elevated the discussions that we had early on.

so they were a little unusual, but the fact that we had somebody at one point come in and say, hey, well, one of my friends has been telling you that you're draining the Colorado River in Las Vegas, and you guys aren't going to be able to do that long term. And people are like, huh? So they were some interesting conversations early on. Anyway, I just wanted to add that to that because that was part of the initial process of Green Voice Conversations.

Well, it sounds like it starts with awareness and you guys provided some access to new voices that people had never heard before, which is really where education comes from. And it's interesting how you were, Dean, you were talking about how siloed everything was to begin with and how, you know, that's maybe hopefully started to change. Was there anything about the way things were about 15 years ago that you think, gosh, I'm so glad we're past that part? Or do you feel like we've made progress?

I do feel like we've made progress. think there's, know, manufacturers have done a lot. They've really stepped up a lot and offered products and materials that I don't even know the design community knew to ask for, which I think is really impressive. And I also think that legislative and, you know, laws have changed significantly.

So we own hotels in six different markets, all fairly liberal in nature. so like as an owner operator, we have pretty stringent requirements we have to meet anymore. You know, we have to publicly disclose all of our energy consumption. We have new regulations coming down by 2030 where we have to meet actual energy benchmarks.

So we have to start reducing our energy consumption in our buildings mandated by law. And As much as I hope and wish that people would do the right thing and, you know, every owner of a building would make their buildings very efficient, I do think that regulation is a key driver in the change that has happened and needs to continue to happen. So, yeah, I think we've made a lot of progress. There's still a long way to go.

think a lot of what David has always as a sustainability lens is thinking bigger, right? Not just thinking about what you do on a day-to-day basis, but how does what you're doing impact pandas in China? Or how does it impact the rainforest, right? How does it impact things that you don't feel like you touch?

And it does! So understanding how to connect those dots is complicated. And I think GreenVoice did a good job at trying to... That was the Vermiculture, which is a worm farmer, by the way, I should clarify.

David uses all these terms and often people don't know what he's talking about, which I got an interview. It was fascinating. It was so cool, right? How does a designer connect to a worm farmer?

think those are really, I think they're interesting, but they're also foundational to understanding the why in sustainability and not just the how. I think we often dive right into the, well, how do I do it? Well, that's, we need to understand that, but if you don't have the foundation first, then it isn't as sustainable to use the word in a broader sense. It sounds like you've talked about a couple different things.

At first you mentioned the vendors, and the vendors started bringing some new solutions and then talked a bit about the regulatory environment in certain places that sort of driven people along that have brought sustainability more to the forefront. And we have Rachel here, and Rachel is a vendor as well. So I wanted to see, Rachel, kind of what your perspective on where green sustainable practices in business from a vendor perspective, where it's been and where it is now. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean if we're going back to 2011 things were very different then I was starting to get calls for the first time around then and the calls would say something like hey, so we're working on a project and I need to know everything that's in your building product, right and as a manufacturer I was thinking are you out of your mind like you know global supply chains, right?

I was working for a different company at that time and transparency emissions all of these things were really still kind of new and we think of it now as the bare minimum but we really started to kind of understand the impact that building products had on our health and Dina you talk about regulation and you know the rest of the world has a lot obviously the rest of the world other parts of the world have a lot more regulation when it comes into chemical management chemical restrictions we don't have as much enforcement in that area, specifically in the United States.

know any WH is global, you know, if we're speaking about North America and the US specifically. And so what we've really done as an industry is lean, is really create our own requirements and our own standards and then lean on as designers, third party building certifications that recognize those standards. So I'm thinking of things like health product declarations, declare labels, cradle to cradle certification. Because we want to make sure that we're not greenwashing, right?

As a manufacturer. We don't want to make claims or say that we have that we're a green product or right? Because what does that actually mean? Like green doesn't really have a metric.

So we want to make sure that we are relying on standards and certifications and that we're speaking factual when we're talking about sustainability. So I think one of the things we've really done over the last few years is give more meaning to what sustainability is, right? And give metrics and methodologies. As an industry, we're talking about sustainability, when we're doing reporting, we actually have factual findings that we can reference.

So that's been a huge shift, I'd say, in the last 15 years. And I think in hospitality, that shift in the last five years is coming stronger and stronger in terms of leaning on these third-party building standards for when we're reporting sustainability in this specific. upset of the market. speaker-0: It sounds like we started getting asked, the vendors, that's my role as a vendor, we started getting asked more and more.

We needed to have the answers and then we had to actually be clear on what these certifications actually meant and so those have grown over time. It can be a little tricky because sometimes things in hospitality can be a little more custom in nature. Is that a challenge, Rachel? speaker-1: Yeah, you know my specific product.

don't have that challenge but other products that I've worked with Absolutely, I think one of the unique parts of the hospitality sector and what's so amazing about it is that it is so custom right and so every single property is Really a little bit different and a little bit unique and as vendors we need to react to that and make sure that we can create custom solutions But why is that that's challenging when you have different options? and different customizations for every single client, it's hard to create more standardized sustainability documentation and data.

And I think that's still a challenge that as an industry, we sort of are figuring out a little bit, right? So how can we get a little bit higher level and sort of have not blanket, but overall sustainability documentation and data. But that definitely is a challenge because as a vendor, we want to meet our designers requirements and our designers needs. And sometimes that goes a little bit outside the box.

And so I still think that if you're being very strict with the certification data, sometimes it falls a little bit outside of that. And how can we react to that as an industry to make sure that we're more inclusive to those custom types of products? speaker-0: Sounds like one of the exciting things about hospitality is that you do have a little bit more custom work and bespoke work, it creates a challenge to do that in a sustainable way and to be able to certify it. David, can you think of any other ways that hospitality maybe has been a particular challenge relative to other industries from your perspective, corporate or commercial or government?

Well, I was struck by something earlier that you guys were talking about, you know, 15 years ago. mean, obviously what Rachel was talking about is bought on. mean, we really didn't have determining factors about sustainability that, you know, that were really credible. but I was just personally thinking 15 years ago, I had just come off doing a consultancy in Indonesia for USAID.

I was doing sustainability training to Indonesian companies. And I thought what I really learned from that is something that has improved for now in that social component, that the people part of People Planet Profits. When you are faced with people that are living day to day in small villages, small communities, that every order means something, keeps someone alive, frankly. So when we think about sustainability here in the United States, we don't think about it as a means of survival, but in a lot of these very poor nations, commerce keeps people alive.

And so when you really do look at your supply chain and when you look at the triangular part of sustainability, people, planet, profits. Being faced with challenges that some of these nations face really brings it home about the importance of really understanding all those components of sustainability. And I think now we realize that we have to measure that when we look at a product, we look at a company, that has to be a big factor in how you assess them and how you look at the supply chain in general.

So just want to add that. But to your specific question about hospitality, I think hospitality is grown a lot from 15 years because at one point they were really, hospitality was a bit laggard in terms of the advancements in sustainability and I think now with the more commonality of some of these measurements I think we've made great leaps and bounds and products have caught up. At one point products were just, it was a heavily greenwashed area, products really didn't have transparency, we didn't know a lot about how to to view that in the broader sense of sustainability.

So I think that's changed quite a bit. And we're seeing not, you know, Rachel talked a little bit about the designers that were going to the vendors. We're also seeing some, are people pushing to a more sustainable future? We're seeing it on the property end, on the ownership and on the individual property end.

And I think that's where Dina can come in and tell us a little bit about the perspective from the stakeholder of the owners and the managers from your experience. How has Green Voice sort of grown up and how have you seen it manifest with your organization? Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important. to talk about how the end customer is the people that are staying at hotels and they're really the one that I think is you that are used as an excuse sometimes for why sustainability you know can't be used or we can't take something away from the gas or you know will be punished as an owner if we use low-flow showers because people won't like them or you know whatever the commentary is and I I I believe very strongly you can provide an elevated guest experience.

You can actually improve your guest experience and be sustainable at the same time. You just have to be a little creative. And one of the examples I love to use is the water bottles that StayPineapple had in our history, in our 15 year history. It was a signature element that we provided.

unlimited free water bottles at our hotels. It was a nice benefit, right? As you're walking out of the hotel, the front desk would hand you a water bottle for the day and you know, make sure you drink lots of water, stay hydrated. And it was a huge challenge for us because we were throwing away about 750,000 plastic water bottles a year.

And we're small. We have 1,055 rooms total in our entire portfolio. We're not exactly a big operation. So that was a lot of water bottles.

So it took us a couple of years actually to come to a great solution and a lot of creativity. But we ended up with a branded aluminum water bottle It's complimentary to the guests. So we actually elevated again, we elevated their experience. So now you not only have a honestly really crappy plastic bottle, we could get into a long conversation about how good the water actually is in those bottles to something that is aluminum and reusable that you can take home and use for months, right?

You can use it in your backpack after you get home. Hopefully use it as you walk through the airport and with our logo all over it. So there is lot of ways to really elevate that experience. The guests also have available to them a water bar in all of our hotels now that is in conjunction with that water bottle that provides hot, cold, and sparkling water, all complimentary.

So there was a cost increase for us and you know that was part of what we had to figure out and overcome and part of that was ended up being a marketing expense. We were like the water bottles and the marketing of those bottles. Now thousands of them walking around airports everywhere was a big benefit to us from a sales perspective. So there's a lot of ways that you can look at any element from the guest experience perspective and I think designers and the way we approach things through GreenVoice over the years have focused on that and educated people around the fact that sustainability doesn't necessarily take something away from people, it can add.

It can be an additive opportunity. It sounds like you guys found some money in the marketing budget. So when you took a step back and thought a little more holistically, you were able to defray some of that change over cost and achieve a little bit of brand recognition at the same time. And there's other things that sort of came out of, I believe, you know, its tail end of the pandemic that was not really driven by sustainability.

initiative but there were some situations with towels and linens and cleaning the rooms and you there's you're seeing the opportunity for people not to have that done every day right and it's leading to a lot of reuse right can anybody think of any other things that kind of became mainstream or got a little bit more mainstream like that? Yeah, I'll just mention one thing quickly. I think we went to a model of we'll clean upon your request. We generally clean the rooms every three days automatically, but we'll clean a guest's room every day if they want, or we'll clean it, none, while they're there.

And so it actually becomes a more personalized experience versus us assuming you want us in your room messing with your stuff. every day. And so at the front desk when a guest checks in, we communicate with them about what it is that they want. Again, it elevates the experience.

doesn't, we're not taking away housekeeping. We're not saying we're not going to clean your room, but we're providing each individual guest what they want in their experience. That could be an opportunity for a little bit more personalized experience. And you haven't seen a revolt, have you?

No, we have not. Rachel. speaker-1: No, I was just going to say similar trends that I think they're happening. I it was happening before COVID too, but I think overall in building, it's happening more as adaptive reuse as well as building typologies are changing.

And we're seeing more reuse of existing structures rather than always deconstructing or demolition or ground up construction. And we're changing use types often. And again, it's not necessarily doing it for sustainability, right? bottom line that goes with it too.

There are other challenges associated with it as well. We actually turned this into a prompt for the Green Voice Scholarship actually because it's just so relevant to what's happening in buildings today. And we've had a few different speakers at BDNY talking about how they've been using adaptive reuse, you know, not from a hotel to a hotel, but from a completely, I think we had, you know, a shopping mall and a commercial building. and turning them into hotels.

And so I think that's also something that we're continuing to see that again, there's a lot of sustainability benefits for it, right? We're using that core and shell, but there's also some bottom line that comes with it as well, but also good storytelling and good marketing, right? I really think that part of sustainability is storytelling because we want people to engage. We want people to care and we want people to get excited about it, but it's making sure we tell that message in the right way.

You know, we don't want people to feel like we're forcing sustainability on them. Of course, there are some people who are like, give me everything I want at all. And there are some people who are a little more resistant. So we can't call it sustainability all the time, right?

We have to message it in a way that people will be excited about. speaker-0: you Interesting that you the bottom line sometimes leads to some of these adaptive reuses of existing properties and also sometimes sustainability We have to come up with a more creative way to package it right and Spread that messaging and I think that's one thing that that David Mahood is particularly good at David does all of our articles for the NEWH Magazine and we're really grateful for him to be able to Spread the gospel so to speak about sustainability in a way that people can understand and relate to Rachel brought up one point about Green Voice that I did want to plug is that we offer a scholarship through the Green Voice program.

There is a prompt that is created by the Green Voice committee with Rachel's help that is sent out to graduate and undergraduate programs throughout the country for interior design, architecture, and students actually attempt to do a project in school that has a sustainability focus to it. And the prompt may be do an adaptive reuse of the building. And they are able to win scholarship money, right? this activity and they usually join us at BDNY or other shows and Rachel has done a fantastic job of trying to dovetail the discussions that are happening, these panel discussions with all these new voices, all these experts at BDNY are talking about usually something that is related to the prompt, something that's related to the scholarship.

So these young impressionable students who have won this award are able to interact with these subject matter experts who are talking about the same thing that they did that they earned their scholarship for. speaker-1: If you're professor, please use it and have your students submit. I think it's been a really great educational opportunity for the students. They get to come to BDNY, they get to interact with designers, they get a free trip to New York, not a free trip, mostly free, I think a free trip to New York.

And they get to meet the speakers as well. speaker-0: And the access, the access to these people, these people are introduced, walk through the trade show, they meet these vendors, it's such an eye-opening experience, all the exposures, it's really, really remarkable. And that's really what this is all about, it's about education. speaker-1: Exactly.

Yeah. speaker-0: Add something to that. Yeah, David. Yeah, because if you remember in the beginning, you may not, Rachel, but Dean and I will remember this, but when we started with the scholarship, the sustainable scholarship, we had created a directory, our committee, and in that directory was a listing of all these potential things people could be doing to make their products more sustainable, their companies more sustainable.

And that became the basis for the students to use in terms of their work and their entry into the scholarship. So that was another big part of the educational element because we're providing these students information that they might not have gotten in the schooling they were in. So that was an interesting way for us also to engage the students by creating this directory of information. And everybody who was in the directory had to fill out this long form of questions.

And those questions, instead of like lead documentation or any of that, they were using that as the guidance for the information they were providing for the scholarship. So that was something we also did early on. Anyway, I just wanted to that. was before there was such a thing, right?

That it didn't exist anywhere yet. Now we have Green Voice not only started there, but it also branched out and it's not in every chapter, but in many cases we have a Green Voice Chair who is, NEWH is comprised of a number of chapters across the United States, Canada and Europe. And so in San Francisco or New York you may have a person that's on the local NEWH board that is a Green Voice Chair that puts on events that are geared towards sustainability, whether that's an educational event or a community event, or just piggybacking onto an existing event to make it more conscientious about the way that the sustainability practices.

Students have access to a lot of these NWH events that are local, right? That can be part of the Green Voice. We want to provide not just access to those scholarship winners, which is great, but also to students in local chapters that can participate. There are student liaison positions that are also available and they can participate through those.

And then our educators, which Rachel mentioned. We really engage quite a bit with our educators through our all of our different programs and Green Voices and Grade One. That can help get the message down to people who are starting their careers and take it with them as they go through hospitality. So let's talk a little bit about the next generation, right?

What's going to come up next? Do you guys have any particular visions of how you think sustainability is going to look in the near and the long-terms? Any big topics come to mind? I can start on that one.

think the model for LEED was something I always found interesting. When LEED began, the idea was that this terminology that they were going to create for green buildings would ultimately reach a point where it was no longer needed, that it achieved its mark, that everybody knew that this is what you need to do or areas you need to work toward a green building. And the goal was to get to obsolescence. So they would get everybody on board to a point where they were no longer needed.

I kind of think that sustainability can go in that direction. I mean, we'll always obviously need to be more sustainable, but I think that it's embedded so much in what we're doing now that for the future, I really think that that's just going to be a universal language and that I don't believe any company that wants to go on a road, a path that continues onward is going to ignore sustainability or not embrace it. So that's just my sense of what should and could happen. Yeah, I think you're right, David.

And I think it starts with kids and the young generation. It's so interesting now, young adults at this point, but I don't have any kids. But a friend of mine, I remember, you know, 15 years ago, she didn't know anything about sustainability and she was like, ⁓ whatever. she didn't recycle and you know, and then her kids came home from school and went, mom, why do we throw the plastic in the trash?

We're not supposed to do that. And Mom, why are we throwing food in the trash can? And mom, right? And it totally changed her life.

I watched her turn 180 degrees and she preaches at me now. you know, I think children and now luckily those kids are young adults and they're influencing the companies. People are not taking jobs at places that they don't feel like have the right ethos. to not buy products from companies that don't have the right ethos.

There's a lot of social engagement in the young. I think that's always been true. you know, think LEED will become obsolete. And part of that will be regulatory.

I mentioned that in the beginning, you know, in most of the cities we're in. LEED Silver is kind of the regulatory base. But your building could meet LEED Silver in Seattle, probably LEED Gold if you just build it to code, right? So you start to get obsolescence in a program in certain areas.

Obviously, you know, there's probably other parts of the country that maybe not aren't quite there yet, but we have a bright future. And I think the more people think of sustainability as not as something separate, but just as part of the thought process when you're thinking about what things cost and, you know, if it's going to meet the scope of work. Is it sustainable? Like it's just part of the thought process for everything that you do in your life and your business.

Then it's achieved what I think we all hoped it would be. These young people that come down from school and remind us we need to recycle, those are minds that are getting made up pretty early. And at people my age, we have to have our minds changed from the way that we were before. And eventually that younger generation, they become the designers.

They become the hoteliers. They have this vocabulary baked in and this ethos, as you said, already baked into them. And eventually they're the ones calling the shots. So I think generationally, there's something that's happening.

and you made a really interesting point about talent and recruitment. What kind of organization do you want to be? Who do you want to attract to lead, you know, to be some of your people and your human resources? Rachel, do you have any thoughts on the future and what you see coming down the line?

speaker-1: No, I mean, you I'm a mom to two young kids. They're four and seven and it's nice. I read a of books them, of course, and one of them, I just had to look up the name, is called, the series is Good Night, Good Night Construction Site, but there is a subset of that book called Construction Site Mission Demolition, and it's all about how to demolish a building, but they do site separation, source separation on the site for recycling and how to take the different construction materials and separate it so that can get reused or recycled or whatever you're doing it for.

you know, it's nice to see this echoed in some of these, you know, nondescript children's books and it's not even the point of the book, but it's just happening. But that leads me to my next point and just in terms of what is the future and I really, this is something I've been saying for a while, so I'm hoping it'll come true, but I really think circularity is going to be something, hopefully, that is just more common in all buildings at the end of their life. Whether it's a tenant fit out, whether you're doing, you know, every seven years you're doing room upgrades or hallway upgrades.

We're not just thinking about throwing things in the trash. But that, what the challenge with that though is that it's an industry challenge. It's not on the owner, it's not on the subcontractor, it's not on the manufacturer, it's on all of us and we all have to work on that. side together and figure it out.

I think those conversations are developing, but that is where I see the biggest impact that we can all really make together from a sustainability perspective. speaker-0: Any thoughts on technology or any other hot topics that you think that could play a part in how we think about sustainability going forward? speaker-1: I mean... I'll say from one side is the digitization of information.

It just makes it more accessible for everyone. And you're able to really have a bigger picture of understanding from a material side, I'll say. Right. I'm sure it expands beyond that.

From a material side, you have a better idea of the materials you're choosing and it's a much easier way to select products based on what you're looking for. And I'll do a quick plug. At the leadership conference, Since next month now, yeah, we'll be talking about something called the common materials framework and how that's sort of looking at sustainable products and materials in five different areas and how we're looking at sustainability a little more holistically. speaker-0: There's a greater access to certain information that you technology has brought about.

speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I think AI is going to make a difference. I mean, you can't have a podcast without mentioning AI. So, ⁓ and from the perspective that I'll use a ⁓ perfect example for you, somewhat silly, but I needed to write a standard for our hotels around mechanical systems.

And I went into Gemini and went, I want to have ductless heat pumps as my standard product. for our hotels write me a manual or a know a standard for that and bloop! That easy. was like, I got all the right language.

got, you know, everything explained the way a mechanical contractor would understand it with graphs and diagrams. And it was amazing. I think it makes, again, not just easier, but approachable. Like it doesn't feel so scary to have to, if you're not necessarily, I didn't go to school for engineering.

I mean, I know a lot about mechanical systems, but it's at a owner level, not a, you know, mechanical I could not write a mechanical specification and it allowed me to write enough of a level that it would communicate what the owner's desire was. So that's really interesting and I think that's an example of a million things that you could do that with. Write me what is the most sustainable process that you can use for food waste and it's going to go out and scour the universe and find hopefully really great information from any wh around, you know how food waste can be handled but there is the other side of ⁓ AI which is its energy and water consumption which is significant it is not to be underestimated and it's not it is a sustainability issue.

It's also a social issue, right? Like there could very well be towns that have energy problems in the middle of winter because they have a huge data center that's a hog. so one of the things that I think is interesting talking about the future is space-based data centers, which is a new ⁓ emerging technology. There's actually one small one currently in space.

⁓ It is probably the reason I know about it is a lot of that research is happening here in the Seattle market. And so it's an exciting opportunity because it provides 24 hour solar energy, endless solar energy. And so the data center is not pulling on the grid, which is really what our challenge is, is utilizing grid based energy. So yeah, there's and it's cold up there, super cold.

So they don't need all the cooling for cooling. Right. So it solves a lot of problems. I think every time we create a problem, ⁓ the human mind has the ability to find a solution and that's what we have to work towards in the future is there is nothing that doesn't have a footprint everything has an environmental footprint how do we mitigate that footprint and how do we do things the you know the most economic way from an environmental social perspective possible Yeah, I would add also that.

⁓ I think that we've over relied on technology to solve climate change and I think that's been a fallacy. can't cloud seed our way through all this. Climate change requires a lot of effort. It requires some sacrifice.

It requires a complete understanding of the causes. And I think we've been waiting for that wonderful technological advancement that's going to solve climate change and it's not coming and it isn't ever going to come. So we've got to put technology in its place. It has advantages.

It has some elements of being the right thing that we can do in some cases, but I think AI has got its place. I think it's going to be beneficial. Dina mentioned one of those great examples. ⁓ For somebody like me who does a lot of research, I don't particularly like AI because it ends up doing some of that research for me.

I want to know why I'm making a point and what the point is. So I despite the idea that that some of these data centers are going to suck all the natural resources from those areas and we have not prepared for it. I don't think anybody prepared for the kind of impact that these data centers are going to have. So that is a big challenge going forward.

It sounds like we'll have the opportunity through AI to have a lot of the answers but not quite understand how we got there, right? So there is some danger there. And it sounds like we also don't know the impact of what we're doing to our local infrastructure and our natural resources. So it's critical.

It's critical. I wanted to see, are there any other parting thoughts that you guys had about sustainability and GreenVoice and any WH that you wanted to share any hopes for the future? that you parting thoughts? want to I think we should let David go last.

I'll go. think the last 15 years has shown us that advancements can be made. We can overcome things. We can solve challenges.

There's still a lot to be done. You know, every day I feel frustrated and enlightened at the same time. So I think green voice, keep talking, right? And keep solving the problems and just keep working at it and Rachel, thank you for everything you're doing.

speaker-1: I was just going to say thank you David for starting GreenVoice and for putting all of your ideas and moving them forward through fostering collaboration. I don't think sustainability, it doesn't get done in a silo. It requires a lot of different minds, a lot of different perspectives, people from all walks of the industry. And so just wanted to thank you for being you, David.

You've been a great support when I came into this role and I really appreciate it. speaker-0: Well, you're welcome. I would just say that Green Voice, I'm immensely proud of it. Through all the ups and downs of Green Voice, we're still putting good content out there.

Green Voice also allowed me to meet wonderful people like Rachel and Dina and others. think that education is something that is fundamentally important. It's universal. So for us to continue to provide Green Voice education to the hospitality industry and beyond more than worthwhile.

When I used to finish some of my talks early on I always used use the term one green deed spawns another and I still believe that. I think the spirit of collaboration is what we need to solve a lot of these challenges related to climate change and sustainability in general. So let me just finish by saying one green deed spawns another. Thank you.

Well thanks David. The start of Green Voice and I appreciate all your voices here. You've been integral to telling the story of sustainability as well as helping NEWH move forward our mission as an international nonprofit community that's connecting the industry through scholarships, leadership development, recognition of excellence and education, which is where Green Voice comes in. I appreciate everybody and hopefully years from now, I'll have Rachel coming back being a veteran, telling the story about what it was like today.

So I appreciate you guys joining me today. Thank you. That's a wrap on this episode of Hospitality Unpacked powered by NEWH. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to follow and subscribe to Hospitality Unpacked by NEWH wherever you get your podcasts.

speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: Stay connected with our global community of hospitality leaders by following us at Hospitality Unpacked or visiting hospitalityunpacked.com. Until next time, stay inspired, stay curious, and keep unpacking hospitality.