The Associated Press reported today that over a dozen famous hotels in New York City have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by the year 2025. Those hotels include the Waldorf-Astoria New York, , the Pierre, Crowne Plaza Times Square, the Grand Hyatt New York, the Westin New York at Times Square, the Lotte New York Palace and The Peninsula New York. By the hotels’ taking energy saving steps over the next 9 years, estimated greenhouse gas emission reductions could be as much as 32,000 metric tons and energy saving costs could be about $25 million.
The hotels have signed up with the NYC Carbon Challenge program and will join other area hotels that have made energy efficiency upgrades such as replacing electric bulbs with energy efficient LEDs (light emitting diodes) and installing water-saving features, especially low-flush toilets that use about 1.2 gallons of water instead of the usual 1.6 gallons per flush. Hotels joining the program will be required to submit an annual carbon emissions inventory via a web-based NYC Carbon Challenge Reporting Tool platform and share that information through a US EPA Portfolio Manager tool. Challenge participants will also be required to review data quality annually using a simple data quality guide provided by Mayor DeBlasio’s office. Other New York City buildings have already started taking part in the Carbon Challenge program. Police stations and firehouses are now using LED lighting upgrades, there have been heating and lighting upgrades at landmark museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, whose energy costs are underwritten by the city, and, battery storage technologies at Queens Hospital and Jacobi Hospital.
According to the Carbon Challenge website, participants have already cut their annual emissions by 175,000 metric tons of carbon and are collectively saving almost $175 million annually in lower energy costs. By the end of the program, current participants are projected reduce citywide emissions by nearly 515,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
