Marriott Turns Out the Lights at 500 Hotels Worldwide to Celebrate Earth Hour

This Saturday, March 27, at 8:30 p.m., local time, Marriott-branded hotels and resorts worldwide will turn out the lights, for one hour, in support of Earth Hour – a global movement uniting businesses, organizations and individuals in taking action to raise awareness to the issues of climate change – and kick off the company's month-long dedication to environmental awareness.

Last year, Earth Hour, organized by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) attracted more than 80 million participants in the U.S. and nearly a billion people around the world.  Watch this 30-second video for a fun overview of how this event is celebrated.

"We're encouraging our hotels and business units worldwide to dim or turn off their non-essential lighting in support of this event," said Mari Snyder, vice president, social responsibility and community engagement, Marriott International, Inc. "Our goal is to have 500 hotels, resorts and business units participate this year. It's just one part of our ongoing Spirit To Preserve environmental strategy and lead-in to our companywide initiative in April."

Every April, Marriott celebrates Environmental Awareness Month to actively engage employees and guests in doing their part to help protect the environment--a key component of the company's environmental strategy,   Throughout the month, hotels generate awareness about the effects of climate change; remind guests and employees of environmentally-friendly home, work and travel alternatives; and encourage employees to participate in activities to help beautify surrounding communities and sustain indigenous habitats.

A sampling of Environmental Awareness Month activities will include:

• Eighty Marriott employees in Korea will team up with the Green Rangers, an association for Korean school children, on Korea's Arbor Day, April 5, to plant trees in Pocheon-kun, in Gyeonggi-do and donate krw 2,375,000 ($2,050) to support green forest activities in the local community.
• The Renaissance Shanghai Pudong will partner with Roots & Shoots– to sell small plants and generate money to plant more trees in China.
• In Hong Kong, employees will take part in the "Tree Planting Challenge 2010" organized by Friends of the Earth Main Dam of Shing Mun Reservoir to promote the message of "Save Tree, Conserve Nature." Volunteers are required to dig pits, plant trees and seedlings and complete 13 km on a hiking trail within a few hours.
• The Doha Marriott will clean up the local beach and plant indigenous plants around the hotel.
• The employees of Marriott hotels in Dubai have invited students from three local schools to help plant 100 trees and educate them on the importance of reducing their carbon footprint.  
• The Sharm El Sheik Marriott Resort in Egypt is hosting an event entitled "Preservation of the Red Sea Environment" to raise employee and guest awareness about the deterioration of the Red Sea and its corals.
• In Paris, France, employees are teaming up with the Surfrider Foundation for their annual clean-up of the river Seine.
• London hotels are partnering once again with Thames 21 to clean up the shores of the river Thames in front of the London Marriott County Hall.
• The employees of Torrance Marriott South Bay adopted a section of the Madrona Marsh and each month, a group visits to prune, weed and plant indigenous plants. In April, employees are inviting volunteers, friends and family to join them.
• Employees in New Jersey are joining their local business partners to plant gardens outside of school entrances, landscape and remove trash from community parks, and paint lines for outdoor games on blank school parking lots in the cities of Newark, Plainfield, Union City, and Jersey City. 

www.DaviesGreenEnergy.com

Smart Grid Will Reinvent and Revitalize Energy Efficiency for Retailers

Apogee Interactive founder and long-time industry expert Joel Gilbert advised national retailers to keep a close eye on the smart grid, saying "What was once price prohibitive is now going to be relatively easy, and this will reinvent and revitalize energy efficiency efforts for many retailers." Gilbert addressed the Edison Electric Institute annual conference for national accounts in Boston yesterday.

"The Smart Grid may enable smaller retailers to participate in deeper partnerships with their energy providers on price-responsive load and in tracking energy efficiency efforts," said Gilbert. This meeting marked Gilbert's 10th consecutive year to address EEI's National Accounts Conference comprised of more than 600 senior executives and facilities directors for national chain retailers such as Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, Marriott, Starbucks and more.

He encouraged the retailers to pursue efficiency retrofits and renewable energy projects now saying, "Funding for energy initiatives are likely to peak this year, so it's time to get even more aggressive with what was once thought to be advanced technology. There may never be a better time to put together such energy projects."

Gilbert also noted the advent of devices from home automation and energy management system companies such as Control4 and others will make it easy and cost effective for small customers to easily manage their energy use. Apogee Interactive developed and licenses the energy analysis software that serves as the analytical engine for the control devices.

However, Gilbert did offer a word of caution, "The smart meters we all hear about may not be able to do decimal-level math and record fractional kilowatt hour use. Using whole number or integer-based meters is like trying to navigate around your neighborhood using an odometer without a tenth-of-a-mile digit."

Gilbert has observed the energy roller coaster for nearly four decades, through boom times and down turns, through cogeneration, deregulation and reregulation. "Today, energy suppliers, their customers, and trade allies will all have to work together as our country works through the details of our policies and politics on energy over this next year," Gilbert said. "We need true dialogue and not dogma to make this possible."

www.DaviesGreenEnergy.com