Our Eco-Friendly Hotel Is An Environmental Leader In The State of Colorado
Being located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains right along babbling Bear Creek, it can be easy to take the nature that surrounds our eco-friendly hotel for granted. With environmental strain becoming increasingly more prominent across the globe, Colorado Bear Creek Cabins has made environmental conservation and sustainable business practices a top priority. Our objective in doing so is to preserve the surrounding nature for our guests to enjoy at our eco-friendly hotel, as well as contribute to a healthier, more sustainable future globally for generations to come.
We are well aware of how taxing the hospitality industry is on the environment as a whole. Every year, enough plastic is thrown away to circle the earth four times around, and 50% of that plastic is only used one time.⁽¹⁾ Hotels heavily contribute to single use plastic, from water bottles, coffee cups, toiletry bottles, straws, stirrers, packaged tea/coffee, etc. Additionally, hotels use approximately 15% of total water available in the United States annually,⁽²⁾ which equates to roughly 17.5 trillion gallons.⁽³⁾ A hotel can use upwards of 400 gallons of water per room per day, and in some locations tourism uses 8 times more water than the local population.⁽⁴⁾ Clearly, the hospitality industry has a substantial impact on the environment, and we have taken strides to reduce our environmental footprint at Colorado Bear Creek Cabins. We would like to share more details about what we are doing at our eco-friendly hotel to meet that objective.
What Steps Has Our Eco-Friendly Hotel Taken To Reduce Its Footprint?
Reduced Water Usage
- Replaced all water fixtures, including the bathroom faucets, kitchen faucets, toilets, and shower heads to high efficiency models. During peak demand periods, we have observed a 30% volume reduction in water usage, which equates to approximately 33,000 gallons of water per year.
- Installed rain barrels on the outside of nearly all cabins to capture rainwater from roofs, completely eliminating the use of sprinklers and hoses for landscaping needs.
- Re-seeded the main cabin lawn with a drought-tolerant native grass mix, reducing overall water needed for lawn maintenance.
- Eliminated daily linen housekeeping for in house-guests - linens are replaced only upon request for in-house guests. This practice started as a safety measure for COVID-19 and has since continued due to the contribution it has towards our water conservation efforts.
Reduced Solid Waste
- Installed refillable kitchen & bathroom soap/shampoo dispensers with phosphate free products, eliminating all single-use plastic products for toiletries and saving approximately 10 pounds of plastic waste per year.
- Installed drip coffee maker and removed Keurig pod coffee maker, eliminating all single use plastic products for coffee. The only single use products we have related to coffee are sugar and creamer packets, both of which are paper packages.
- Instituted a recycling program whereby all guests are encouraged to separate trash from recyclables.
- Encourage guests and housekeepers to reuse plastic shopping bags for our dog waste removal system.
- Reuse all left-behind barbeque supplies (lighter fluid and charcoal) and provide them to guests, helping reduce usage of plastic and paper packaging.
Reduced Energy Usage
- Exchanged all of our incandescent indoor and outdoor light bulbs to high efficiency LED light bulbs (approximately 100 total), saving approximately 75% electricity for lighting purposes while also reducing the frequency in which bulbs need to be replaced. In 4 years, only 5 out of 100 have needed to be replaced, or approximately 1 bulb per year.
- Replaced all water heaters in cabins 1-8 with new, high efficiency water heaters. The mountain home water heater was also replaced with a new tankless, on-demand water heater. Both water heater options have resulted in a reduction of our natural gas usage.
- Installed light sensors to activate most of our outdoor decorative LED string lights only at night, reducing electricity usage. Additionally, only 2 strands have needed to be replaced out of 15 total strands in the past 2 years since installation of sensors.
Improved Waste Water Quality
- Replaced all toxic, chemical cleaners with all natural, biodegradable cleaners (all of which identify every ingredient used to create the product). Replaced harmful detergent with a phosphate free, biodegradable detergent.
- Eliminated ALL use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers for all landscaping needs, preventing harmful runoff and nutrient pollution of phosphorus and nitrogen to Bear Creek.
- Elected to use coarse gravel & compact road base (as opposed to asphalt) as our main parking lot, reducing direct runoff into Bear Creek and minimizing the formation of gullies.
- Upgraded septic system with a treatment system designed to achieve maximum removal of nitrogen and phosphorus of systems currently available. 5. Eliminated use of harsh drain cleaner products by installing screens in all drains, preserving the integrity of our septic system.
Our Eco-Friendly Hotel Has Received Recognition For Its Sustainability Effort
Colorado Environmental Leader Bronze Level Badge. Source: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
In short, the changes we have made to our infrastructure and operations have reduced the demands on water supply resources we utilize, reduced the solid waste we generate, reduce our energy (natural gas/electricity) requirements, improved the quality of the waste water we generate, and eliminated the potential exposure of our guests, staff, and family to harsh chemicals.
As a result of the steps we have taken thus far in our journey to become a more sustainable, eco-friendly hotel, we have received recognition from the Colorado Green Business Network at the Bronze level for three years in a row since initially applying in 2020. This program, which the State of Colorado has expanded from its original format as the Environmental Leadership Program, promotes and recognizes businesses that voluntarily go beyond compliance with state and federal regulations and are committed to continual environmental improvement. In addition to these awards, we were also awarded the Innovation Spotlight Award by the State of Colorado for our efforts which “showed a significant contribution to increasing water conservation.”
We are humbled that our eco-friendly hotel has come this far in our sustainability journey. In the near future, we plan to install electric vehicle charging stations for our guests. We also plan to install solar panels on all of our units to help continue reducing our overall energy usage. We are excited to continue improving and reducing our environmental impact for our business, our Evergreen community, and our planet at large.
