I met some tourism officials recently who were gung-ho about their new green hotels program. They kept emphasizing the program’s simplicity. For a minimal membership fee any hotel could be included on a list of green businesses. No danger of pesky questions or surprise inspections to muddy the waters. The beauty of this green program was its complete reliance on self-regulation. In the unlikely event that a member’s green claims didn’t match reality, eagle-eyed visitors could expose the aberrant green washer online.

Psst! Hotel Ivory Palace claims they use low flush toilets, but they looked the same to me!

Without clear standards green is little more than a vague promise to be less bad. Being less bad is a middle-of-the-road strategic position.  No one will notice. No one will care. Being less bad is the slowest and most expensive way to go green. Maybe not what people want to hear , but better now than too late.

A green plan launched with the best of intentions and the foggiest of strategic objectives risks becoming a grand mission to nowhere. Green is a journey to a specific place that should be easy to describe in words that paint clear pictures

Until you can describe green, you’re not ready to go green.

Any time spent refining and unifying the strategic path to green saves countless dollars and hours. A few suggestions to help you get started:

1. Don’t go green alone.
2. Bring green ambitions into sharp focus.
3. Invest green plans with a far-sighted sense of purpose.
4. Develop green metrics that matter.
5. Engage visitors and residents through collective action.

I attended a recent energy and climate change symposium where a panel of big-brained experts did their damnedest to remain upbeat about the future. The panelists hemmed and hawed about the specifics, but they were reassuringly definitive about one point- the future will run on a mix of nuclear, solar, wind, carbon-sequestered clean coal, lithium batteries, cellulose bio fuels and some other cool stuff once an integrated smart grid becomes fully operational on a national basis.

Say what?

China adds a new power plant to its grid every week in a desperate attempt to avoid national blackout while green gurus in this country pin their hopes on energy solutions that only exist as scribbles on cocktail napkins. China’s power struggle is a wake up call for a planet where increasing numbers of humans grow increasingly dependent on light bulbs, water pumps and hard drives for basic survival. An exploding global middle class means the world will need another 18,000 power plants or their renewable equivalent by 2030 or else.

(more…)