Tedd Saunders is recognized for creating some of the most acclaimed environmental models in the hospitality industry. As founder and CEO of EcoLogical Solutions and an influential member of E2, he was one of the first in the hospitality industry to realize that the greening of hotels could not only help mitigate climate change, but serve the bottom line as well. Some past clients include The Lenox Hotel in Boston, The Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, Taj Hotels, and the Copley Square Hotel in Boston. Ted is also the Chief Sustainability Officer, The Saunders Hotel Group, & Co Owner, The Lenox Hotel and Comfort Inn & Suites Boston/Airport. I recently spoke with him about the greening of his industry and about what each of us can do to encourage hoteliers to adopt a more eco-friendly model. (Hint: It takes more than reusing your bath towel.)

Q. How did you become involved with E2 and what are some of the important things the organization is doing to shape environmental policy?

A.  I became involved with E2 after being a long-time supporter of NRDC. I'm on a board with John Adams, the gentleman who ran NRDC for more than 30 years which lead to my learning about E2. I felt very excited to hear that there was a group that was trying to bring a business voice into the sustainability discussion.  In terms of environmental policy, E2 has had a powerful impact in shaping the conversation so that politicians at the state and federal levels, as well as business people and consumers, can understand that strong environmental policies are a win-win for the economy and environment.

Q. How have you been active in E2? Have you been to Washington to lobby for climate change legislation on behalf of the organization?

A. I've gone to Washington for the group for their annual visit with members of Congress. It was a phenomenal experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to feel like they are reaching the decision-makers and influencing policy issues in this country. I've testified many times at the state level in Massachusetts, on various proposed environmental legislation. I've participated in some outreach, such as writing Op-eds. I've also done a large number of radio interviews around the country to talk about national environmental bills.

For me, it's really about my personal beliefs and passions. I'm a businessperson who cares about environmental issues. Long-term, if we don't get a hold of the climate crisis, it will affect our lifestyles and everything that we are doing every day. That's the reason for my involvement. 

Q. If climate change legislation makes it through Congress, how will it impact your business? 

A. I don't think our business will be affected in the short term by the climate policy. I do lament the fact that, when we are renovating one of our hotels and comparing local New Hampshire granite with granite from China, it's about half the price to buy it from China. The price, however, doesn't include the environmental cost of transporting it here. It's not that I want to pay twice as much, but I do want to do the right thing. It's hard for people to do the right thing if the system is not set up so that people can take our environment into account.             

Climate change is something I feel we have to act strongly upon immediately, or we will be in an unenviable situation down the road. I am on the board with a number of top scientists, including John Holdren, whom Obama just took on as science and technology advisor. He and other top scientists have made it painfully clear that we need to take action on an urgent basis, and we can't take small steps or wait for the situation to become more obvious than it is today. That's what motivates me. I see the handwriting on the wall. I want to be part of the solution rather than waiting until there is little that can be done about it.

Q. You were really at the forefront of the green movement, having begun implementing environmental programs in 1989, before it was in vogue or even on most people's radar. What was your impetus? How did it all begin for you?

A. No one was talking about climate change back in '89. But it was very clear to me. I come from a family business background, where we have a longer-term view than most corporations. We tend to look at things from a generational, very long-term perspective, not quarter to quarter.  I was in our largest hotel at the time, a building more than 1 million square-feet in size! I would see huge volumes of product going in and trash going out. I heard about the water usage in the laundry-we had the largest private laundry in the whole city of Boston. To me it was evident that there had to be a better way. I knew that we had to be more efficient with our resources and respectful of our impact on the environment. We had to try and find a way to get our paper recycled in 1989, because there was no municipal system set up.

We found that through creative thinking and innovation we were able to make some changes that didn't affect the quality of the service and the guest experience. That's been key from the beginning. We are not running an eco-lodge in the jungles of Costa Rica. These are elegant, and in some cases four-star hotels, that must maintain a high standard of quality and comfort for our guests. How do you do that and reduce the wastefulness? It wasn't common wisdom back then. I think it has become more common now.

It was common sense to me back then. It was something I committed myself to fighting for. I committed myself also to convincing the leadership in my family's business to take action and become a living model for what we knew was possible. It took perseverance, hard work and creative thinking through a team of people at the hotels.

I think the most outstanding part is how comprehensive the changes have been. There are no sacred cows, and there haven't been for a long time. We look at every part of the operation and think, "How we can reduce the environmental impact but do it in a way that maintains the four-star quality we are known for?"

Q. What are some of the innovative environmental solutions that Ecological Solutions has developed for your hotels and hotel clients?

A. A lot of what we have focused on has been water, waste and purchasing. But the primary focus has been energy for a number of years, especially after I learned that climate change was such a daunting challenge. In terms of specifics, it's everything from putting in the latest environmental window technology, Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting, and LED exit and hallways signs. At the Lenox, one of our hotels in Boston, we have filtered water stations and filtered ice, because we want to eliminate bottled water from the property.

We also renovated the men's public restrooms at the Lenox and put in all waterless urinals. It looks cool. We have signs over the urinals that tell people that each toilet saves 45 gallons per year. That's 270,000 gallons total that we've saved in that one hotel.

We've been buying energy offsets for a number of years. We were the first hotels to offset 100 percent of our energy at our three primary hotels-we have seven total now. We use compressed natural gas vans for our Comfort Inn properties. It's burns a little more than 65 percent cleaner than regular or diesel. It's definitely a big impact. When looking at the footprint of our hotel, those vans were something that we wanted to deal with. They make a trip to the airport every 20 minutes.

We are eliminating about 270,000 small bottles of water every year and using the savings to offer higher quality amenities. We are replacing the bottled water with wall-mounted dispensers by the showers and sinks in every guest room. We were the first hotels to offer towel and sheet reuse programs. We pioneered that in the United States.

Right now we are looking into solar thermal projects that would heat the water that we use. Hotels use a lot of water, so it makes sense to do solar thermal. We are trying to find the right supplier and the right process to move forward on that.

Everything we do has a good business rational and a good payback. There are additional benefits besides monetary ones, including guest loyalty. It's also something that can help build a great team spirit. We do a lot with raising awareness among our staff. It's not just about putting in the latest and greatest technology. You have to bring a lot of people who are working in the hotels daily on board and explain how they can be part of the process, and part of the solution.

Q. Would you say the hospitality industry is making strides to become more eco-friendly, or is it an industry that is typically slow to change?

A. My answer is both. It has been slow to change, but there is real progress being made now. It's taken a long time and many years of a number of leaders in the field pushing for this issue and showing time and again how hotels could benefit. I think that, in general, people and businesses can be quite slow to change, but we have the facts on our side. With persistence, it's moved from a few people doing something, a few talking about it, and a lot of people questioning whether it was doable, necessary or a positive business decision.

There are always going to be doubters, of course, but it's become commonly thought that the hospitality industry has a huge role to play in determining how we are going to respond to climate change and face the future. Every major hotel corporation has an initiative in place, and many are involved with Energy Star and building LEED-certified buildings. It took a long time, but I'd say that there were lots of bright spots, but they were small, during the first 15 years of my career. Over the last five years, there's been a sea change. Something clicked.

This sea change that's going on is happening at the corporate level and it's slowly trickling down. They are making plans, changing their standards. You will soon be seeing more than what you are seeing now.

Q. Some would say that eco-friendly travel is an oxymoron. How can we tread lightly when we travel

A. The biggest impact you can make is by choosing an environmentally friendly hotel. You should find one that's not just doing sheet cards and changing out a couple of light bulbs, but one that has a more comprehensive program in place. Your method of transportation is also important. Sometimes your options are limited; sometimes we have a habit of always flying somewhere even though there are other options. We may just not think about them. If you are having a business lunch or an event at a hotel, request that the food you are served is local, the seafood harvested sustainably, and that the meat is responsibly grown. We try to encourage clients to buy local, but it's easier in some places than others.

Most people looking into climate change solutions say that most of the solutions will have to come from how we operate our buildings and the type of transportation we use. That is true whether you are talking about your day-to-day life or a business traveler or a homeowner. Shelter. Transportation. Food. Those are the key issues to focus on in terms of reducing the worst effects of climate change.

Q. What does the future of the hospitality industry look like in terms of environmentalism and ecological-impacts

A. I think the greening of the hospitality industry will be widespread in the next 10 years. You have some lag, with so many existing hotels that need to be retrofitted and upgraded in terms of efficiency. That does take time. But there is such a big push to make new buildings more efficient and hotels more sustainable overall. Environmentalism in the hospitality industry will soon become the rule instead of the exception, as it was when we started.

The key though, and what will make a huge difference in how fast the change happens, is the role that businesses play. When companies start to think about the environment when their employees travel, and when they put environmental requests into their proposals to hotels, or choose environmentally friendly hotels over conventional ones, that will get the attention of the hoteliers. When knowledgeable people like E2 members make it a priority to stay in a hotel that is doing good work on environmental issues, that will be the key to bringing it to a point where going green is a no-brainer for every hotel.