The Refinishing Touch Blog

At The Refinishing Touch we've been working with hotels, casinos, colleges and government organizations that have been making the move to be more green for more than 30 years. In that time we've seen a huge change in trends, consumer attitudes and how organizations have responded.

Today, two announcements caught our attention both focused on winning strategies. At one end of the scale, Starwood Hotels announced that all hotels within its latest hotel concept and brand, Element, would pursue the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED certification, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.

Meanwhile 7,100 miles away (give or take a few hundred miles) in Beijing, the Olympic Village was awarded LEED Gold certification by the USGBC as part of the organization's Neighborhood Development certification program.

We have reached a whole new level of 'green-ness' as the impact of the hospitality industry becomes a common ground for consumers, operations directors, marketers in organizations across the spectrum. Only through this collective awareness and the underlying action to go green is it a win-win for all parties - consumers, the environment and the industry.