EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Hotels, resorts, and hospitality groups produce ~ 1% of global CO2 emissions. NYC designer Laurence Carr explores how they are embracing circularity to improve processes and impacts.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Ecofriendly #Conservation #EarthX
Hotels, resorts, and hospitality groups produce ~ 1% of global CO2 emissions. NYC designer Laurence Carr explores how they are embracing circularity to improve processes and impacts.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Follow Us:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxmedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia
How to watch:
United States:
- Spectrum
- AT&T U-verse (1267)
- DIRECTV (267)
- Philo
- FuboTV
- Plex
- Fire TV
#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Ecofriendly #Conservation #EarthX
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00🎵
00:30🎵
00:41Hotels, resorts and the leading hospitality groups that own them
00:46know what customers want when they travel.
00:49Luxury, comfort and unique experiences.
00:53This business sector also has to contend with the fact
00:57that it produces around 1% of global carbon emissions.
01:02The good news is that sustainability and social responsibility
01:06are fast becoming a prime concern for this sector.
01:10And many hospitality groups are actively working
01:13to reduce their consumption of energy, water and consumable goods.
01:18In this episode, we'll explore how hospitality groups
01:22are rising to the challenge of customers demanding
01:25a more sustainable and healthy experience when traveling.
01:29Rick Frelizzi is the Executive Chairman of the International Well Building Institute
01:35and was the Founding Chair and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council.
01:40These two institutions develop, manage and administer
01:44the two most globally recognized and frequently used rating systems
01:50for green, healthy buildings, LEED and WELL.
01:54🎵
01:57Would you explain how both LEED and WELL cater to the hospitality industry?
02:03I think when you look at the hospitality industry in particular
02:07and they've been devastated by the global shutdown,
02:12people not traveling, people not staying in hotels
02:15and many of them have actually begun to reevaluate
02:19what their future is going to look like.
02:24And we're very excited.
02:25We've been working with hospitality industry executives
02:28in a way that we never have before.
02:30They care very much like people that are working in office buildings
02:34about their air quality, their light quality, their acoustics, toxicity.
02:38They want to feel healthy so they can enjoy the trip that they're taking.
02:43The cleaning protocols are very important.
02:46Air quality is the single largest factor in the increased spread of the COVID virus
02:54and apparently the variants that are coming along with it.
02:57So these facilities may have over the last 20 years
03:02decided that investment in the correct type of HEPA filter,
03:07filtration for their systems, new air quality systems,
03:12electronic monitoring of those systems.
03:14Maybe that was something that wasn't in the budget this year.
03:17Maybe we can put that off.
03:19All of these things are coming together in the health industry.
03:22We brought together over 600 of the world's global experts
03:26and created a COVID-19 task force.
03:30They helped us understand what we could do through real estate interventions
03:35and performance to help people make smart decisions.
03:39We brought all that up into what we call our Well Health Safety Rating.
03:44And it's a symbol not only of something that they have accomplished,
03:47but also that people can feel safe going into that place.
03:51And I think that's made a very big difference to the hospitality community in particular
03:58because they wanted to open their doors quickly.
04:00They wanted to get people back to work.
04:02And this is a way that they could get it done
04:04because they want to help people understand they are on top of this issue,
04:10that they are doing everything in their power
04:12to bring people back to a safe way of traveling and staying.
04:17It gives people, I think, a sense of confidence.
04:20That's what people need right now.
04:22And I think under normal circumstances, that could have been a nice thing to do.
04:28Since COVID, that's not the case.
04:30People want a visible sign that they have actually complied with a process
04:35that gives them the ability to say that we are leaders in this space.
04:42To what degree are those trends being driven by the consumers
04:47that stay, travel, eat with hospitality companies?
04:51I think consumers drive the great majority of this today.
04:55It's about having a better experience from a health perspective
05:01that gives me the ability to be more effective at the work I'm doing when I'm traveling.
05:07And I think people are understanding when they're bringing their children on vacation,
05:11they want their children protected in some way.
05:15Current pandemic has shown us that besides having enormous impact
05:20on how we feel, how we think, how we perform,
05:24buildings can play a really vital role in our survival as a species.
05:30The moment represents, I think, a unique opportunity to reconnect with important places
05:36and recommit to ensuring that our buildings and communities,
05:40our organizations, that we're all safe, healthy, inclusive, and resilient for the future.
05:46It's the most important job we have in front of us.
05:54The first hotel to be certified LE Platinum is in Greensboro, North Carolina.
06:06This 5,000 square foot boutique implemented over 70 sustainable practices during construction
06:14and has now become a model for green construction.
06:19However, the visionary entrepreneur behind it, Dennis Quaintance, isn't sitting on his laurels.
06:26He's proactively improving the environment and bringing his entire community along with him.
06:36So we said, OK, we're going to be aggressive with some of these sustainable practices,
06:42but we don't trust what anyone else tells us, so we want a third-party certification.
06:48We told no one that we were registering there because if we didn't accomplish anything,
06:53we didn't want to be embarrassed by it.
06:55We had the goal of creating a facility and a work environment and an environment for our guests
07:01that would first be comfortable.
07:03So I think there's a real opportunity to really progress with these sustainable practices
07:10in the built environment.
07:12So we are a net 60% right at 60% building, but we could be much lower than that.
07:18I don't think that a hotel will get to net zero.
07:23We see this window front to ceiling, you know, showing us such a beautiful landscape
07:29and all this greenery around, as well as all these really airy areas, you know, the lobby.
07:36As soon as we enter, all the rooms have really very large windows.
07:40We see natural sunlight.
07:42All of these are really conducive to really enjoy our relationship to nature.
07:47It's a truly beautiful space.
07:49We endeavored to use native plants, and we used a lot of them.
07:53We restored over two acres of a stream that runs near here, North Brothel Creek,
07:59so that there would be happy families of turtles and ducks,
08:02and there's all that stuff going on down there.
08:05We designed the building in a way sort of selfish from Nancy and I, my wife and I's idea
08:11that we really enjoy natural light.
08:13So we think if we enjoy it, then other people might too.
08:17So even in the restaurant, the restaurant is only 38 feet wide, but it's 175 feet long.
08:23So there's a center sort of alley.
08:26So the way where you're sitting in that restaurant,
08:28you cannot be any further than 16 feet away from these big windows that have gardens just beyond them.
08:34And I think that's one of the things about sustainable practices.
08:38It has to be sustainable from a business perspective.
08:41So people need to be able to respond favorably to it.
08:44So I think that it's really easy to design a building that doesn't use much energy and has good indoor air,
08:53but you may not like being in it.
08:55I always say you can't fake a response.
08:57So what's your response to being in the space?
09:01Proportions, materials, and what you see when you look out a window.
09:05Absolutely. And, you know, biophilia is really a science,
09:10and biophilic design will stay in the built environment for the coming years.
09:15What about saving energy?
09:17I think it's silly that we waste energy.
09:20I don't know of anyone from any ideological, political perspective that says wasting energy is good.
09:28This is becoming more important to consumers, and I think it'll continue.
09:35My own opinion is the next decade, we're going to see more progress,
09:40particularly in the agricultural areas, around the food that we consume.
09:45I see sort of a little bit of a low boil, and I feel real good about that.
09:50Would you please touch on your mission to be of genuine service to our guests,
09:55fellow staff members, owners, and the Earth and her people?
10:01Life is short, but life here, hopefully on Earth, is going to last a whole long time.
10:06So what's the sort of trajectory of the way we deal with the Earth,
10:12the environment of the Earth, physically and socially?
10:15Nancy and I decided that we wanted to be practical and idealistic,
10:20so we decided we'd be pragmadelists.
10:23The joke is, if you're just practical, you might be okay out in the world and pay your bills,
10:29but just kind of boring. It's not very fulfilling.
10:32And if you're just idealistic, you're probably broke.
10:35So let's do a little bit of both. Let's oscillate between them.
10:40So we wanted to be a part of a team that was sort of united in purpose.
10:45We loved the idea of camaraderie and figuring out how to get things done.
10:50And, you know, literally we say the idea is love, compassion, and service,
10:56but without the patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man stuff that often comes with those sorts of ideas,
11:03the way that the world sort of works in the capitalist end of things is we put the shareholders first
11:08and then we put, you know, the customers or the staff second.
11:12I decided that that seemed sort of messed up, that let's figure out how to capitalize the company
11:18so that we didn't have the owners coming first, but instead we had our guests coming first.
11:24So we even say at a scale of 1 to 10, the guests are 10 and our colleagues are 9.9,
11:29and the shareholders are an 8, but now we're 100% employee-owned, so the shareholders are 9.9.
11:37I really feel like this is a really forward-thinking concept that you have.
11:42When we talk about sustainability and the physical and social environments,
11:46the idea of putting people that may not otherwise be in a position
11:53to benefit from the earning power of capital into that position is very powerful.
11:59You know, Einstein said that he thought that the strongest force in the universe is compound interest.
12:06So if we're able to get this powerful force of the universe working for more of our sisters and brothers
12:13and siblings on the earth, then I think that's part of sustainability too.
12:17It definitely sounds like it's a very holistic process, the way you approach it all.
12:22This organization is like a human being.
12:26It's an organism and we make progress and we regress and we're just all over the place.
12:33But what we've learned is that if we remind ourselves that we're considering generations in the future,
12:42and literally when we have meetings, we'll often look at an empty chair and say,
12:47okay, this chair represents someone from seven generations from now.
12:51Let's ask them what they think, and I think we can predict what they think.
12:54We're like enthusiastic amateurs.
12:57I don't know that we're all that great at it, but I know we're sincere.
13:01It's easy to get discouraged.
13:03We refer to it as let's maintain that eighth grade sort of team project enthusiasm.
13:09Oh, I didn't know that.
13:10And if we don't have that, then it's just no fun.
13:13Distinctive details, elegant lines, authentic materials, forgivable fabrics, timeless sophistication.
13:33That's the promise Véronin makes to the luxury resorts, boutique hotels,
13:38as well as high-end residential clients who commission their goods.
13:42Company founders Tom and Sabine Véronin create upholstered furnishings using meticulous craftsmanship
13:51and highly sustainable and circular practices, including responsibly sourced lumber,
13:57recycled metal coils and packaging materials, plant-based foam cushions, and more.
14:04Let's take a peek inside the showroom and learn more about their approach.
14:13Bonjour Sabine, ravi de vous avoir ici. Bonjour Tom.
14:18Bonjour Laurence, enchantée d'être ici.
14:21Merci à vous, on est très content d'être avec vous.
14:26We're from Belgium originally and now live in High Point, North Carolina, where we manufacture all the furniture.
14:33We wanted to make it here, we wanted to employ here,
14:36and just create opportunities for people when everything was starting to go overseas.
14:41Véronin is pretty much sold through the trade and the retailer.
14:45We've worked a little bit with Four Seasons.
14:48We just did a recent renovation with Hotel Guanahani in St. Barts.
14:53In Belize we did the Mahogany Bay.
14:55We're going to be in one of the famous little anchors in Charleston called the Belmond.
15:00So it's really very specialty hotels.
15:03We work with different partners all around the world.
15:07We're very well known for linen, and one of the partners is Libico out of Belgium.
15:11Linen is a very sustainable plant to grow.
15:15It doesn't require a lot of water and no pesticides at all.
15:18We just grouped a selection of fabrics, sustainable fabrics, from Spanish mills, Italian mills, Belgians as well.
15:26They're made of recycled bottles mostly, so they are post-consumer materials, all of them.
15:32As well as all the linens, which are naturally very eco-friendly.
15:37You started to work with local suppliers with their wood ash and walnut FSC certified.
15:43Way ahead of the curve.
15:45What drew you towards sustainability early on?
15:48We tried to keep it as close to home as we can again because of the carbon footprint.
15:53Most of the lumber is sourced pretty much from the Midwest.
15:57Most of the lumber, which is walnut, ash, and maple, is sourced within probably a 250-mile radius from where the plant is located.
16:06We have a few hybrid products, which means stick-built with a few engineered particles to it.
16:12And it's actually a far superior product as far as strength is concerned, even to a stick-built frame.
16:17So people think that's an oxymoron. It's not.
16:21Five quarters, an inch and a quarter thick Baltic birch.
16:25It's finger-joining, it's puzzle-joining, it's just as strong as it gets.
16:29And again, it's FSC certified lumber, so we're not doing harm to Mother Nature.
16:33We have what we call a soy-based foam core.
16:36We get an old down-and-fitter fill with down-and-fitter wrap, the good old way.
16:39And we have a spring-down core with a down-and-fitter wrap.
16:42So those are three options.
16:44And all of those are sourced locally?
16:46Locally. I mean, those are all within less than a mile from our factory.
16:51You say you reconcile with nature whenever you can when making your products.
16:57Can you share eco-friendly practices?
17:00One of our Varelen brand values would be one of them, stay curious.
17:04Number two, be socially responsible.
17:06So curious is we're just never sitting on our laurels, right? We can't.
17:10We've got to always try to be better tomorrow than we were today.
17:14We're looking at different fill factors because we've got a foam shortage that happened last year.
17:19With the Texas freeze-over.
17:21So we're starting to look at COGO fiber fills.
17:25We're looking at plastic bottles that are being repurposed into seating.
17:29We're looking at horse hairs again. We're looking at camel hairs.
17:32We're looking at all sorts of different products to have a seat that would be as good as a ride as we currently have,
17:39but with even a more sustainable factor to it.
17:43We hired one engineer specifically to design a line right now that would be used using nothing but our scraps.
17:50If you look at walnut, for example, walnut is a very gnarly tree and there's probably any board we use,
17:55we get up to 50% yield, which is not good.
17:59So that means 50% would go away into the waste bin.
18:02So we're looking at making a line of small items, combs to little coat hangers, anything we can think of.
18:08We've got friends with barns, all the sawdust is going there.
18:12We're trying to pretty much become a zero waste landfill operation because it's just important.
18:19We're not there yet, but today we're stronger than we were yesterday and tomorrow we'll be stronger again.
18:23So one of our initiatives is we want to get off the grid as soon as we can.
18:28So we're looking at getting solar energy, solar panels.
18:31So we want to bank all that energy because Varela doesn't need all of it so we can share it with all the employees.
18:37What I love is that you are not only honouring makers,
18:40you're helping actually a whole community to get work and to really support that through the demand that you create.
18:48So that really creates the atmosphere that we feel when we enter your showrooms.
18:53We understand it's a whole. You have a holistic approach to what you do.
18:57It's such a wonderful approach to your business.
19:00I think it's unique and special.
19:03It's how we are, it's how we live, it's what we want to convey to the outside world.
19:09It's essential that we all make a change, that we all have to do our part.
19:14And American made, I mean, I think it's not a fad anymore. It's finally, it's an MO.
19:18People really care, want to have it made in their backyard.
19:22We're creating jobs here, we're paying well. We decided to do that 20 years ago.
19:28As far as being locally made, also training the workforce.
19:32We want to put programs into place that will educate because it's a dying craft for a lot of people.
19:39And we have, you know, some of our people are aging out, especially in the frame building.
19:43It's, you know, the young people are not learning.
19:46And so we want to put a program into place within our factory.
19:50All these skills that are dying, we want to make sure that they don't die.
19:54It's a beautiful craft. It's a beautiful profession. It's a very honorable profession.
19:59We want to bring that back to the younger generation and do our part as a company.
20:04Our team is like rock solid and it's just getting better by the day.
20:08And we're having more fun than ever.
20:10We got an organic garden, so we feed all the vegetables back to the employees.
20:14I got about 60 organic, free roaming chickens.
20:18We give all the eggs back to the employees.
20:20We build trails around the factory, so we've got 65 acres there.
20:23So people can walk and experience nature and just go relax. You need a moment.
20:28Everybody can create a beautiful sofa or a beautiful piece of artwork or a nice piece of lighting.
20:33But it's, who's behind it?
20:36We want sustainable products. We want classy products that are trendy, but are not just for today.
20:44It's very important that you create a product that's going to be not just that fast fashion.
20:49We want something that's going to be around for generations to come.
20:52So it's very important that we just make a better product today than we did yesterday.
20:57And just don't sit still.
20:59When I think of Verilyn, certain keywords come to my mind.
21:03Respect, authenticity, luxury, honoring craftsmanship.
21:10But also really sustainability and circularity and innovation.
21:16Doing for the greater good.
21:19More and more, sustainability and circularity are being integrated into hotels,
21:39into their architecture, landscapes and the furnishings they choose.
21:44Many hospitality companies are following the Proximity Hotels example,
21:49seeking out lead and well certifications to give consumers peace of mind
21:55and prove that their business is accountable to high standards of environmental responsibility, health and wellness.
22:03Not only are architectural plans evolving to meet the future,
22:07but hotels are also bringing the outdoors in through biophilia,
22:13which helps clean and enrich the air quality and bring people closer to nature.
22:18But perhaps the most luxurious aspects of eco-friendly hospitality are the furnishings and indoor air quality.
22:27With pioneers such as Verilyn working towards zero waste and constantly improving their internal processes,
22:35elegance and luxury found a marriage with sustainability.
22:40Today, we got a glimpse into the future of hospitality.
22:44And I have to say, with so much circularity being adopted, the future looks quite bright to me.
22:50Until next time, I am Laurence Gare, designing a more circular future.