Lodging Engineer
HARRY HOBBS
continued from page 1
one of a small percentage of buildings with
this exceptional designation, placing it in
the nation’s top 25% of energy efficient
buildings in the United States. And, ac-
cording to Harry, the hotel may become the
most energy efficient hotel building in the
entire United States. Harry’s energy sav-
ings are not only getting the attention of
Corporate Headquarters, but are attracting
ecologically minded guests to the property
as well. In fact, Harry’s energy efficiency
programs creating so much buzz and sav-
ings that IHG HQs respectfully refers to
him as the “Rebate Man.”
Harry, would you tell Lodging Engineer
how you got started pursuing energy
conservation at this hotel?
In August of 2007 when Peter Koehler, the
general manager of the hotel, asked me
what I thought we should do for recycling
and green programs for the new hotel. I
told him that LEED (US Green Building
Council’s - Leadership in Energy and En-
vironmental Design) was the best way for-
ward. At the time I didn’t know how true that
was, but I did know that he and I shared a
vision of operations for the new hotel that
would be socially responsible, ecologically
respectful, and financially sound. We are
fortunate to be a part of an ownership and
operating partnership that is committed to
providing a luxuriously responsible hotel
experience in downtown San Francisco.
How did you identify maintenance prac-
tices and operations that are sustain-
able and fit into the LEED criteria?
For us right now the story is the struggle
of identifying and implementing green op-
San Francisco InterContinental Hotel
erations and maintenance practices. In
September of last year we found Jubilee
Daniels our LEED consultant, and togeth-
This helped us identify costs and ROI’s language of LEED.
er with our newly formed “Green Team”
for improving our performance in these
we gathered enough information together
areas. In December of 2008 we did our
Can you tell me about LEED’s Existing
to decide we could at least achieve LEED
1st credit selection. During this process
Building certification?
Certification or maybe even LEED Silver,
we reviewed all the available credits with The path to LEED has been challenging
for no additional costs, other than our en- the hotel management team and decided and exciting. LEED EBOM (Existing Build-
ergy improvements. We obtained our EPA we could achieve silver certification and ings Operations Maintenance) is such
- Energy Star Benchmark Score to see maybe even Gold. Each credit we have a thorough review of all the ways we do
how we compared with other US hotels. selected now has an owner and a plan to business and has demanded that we fos-
We also obtained free energy, water and achieve the credit. When you come to our ter a learning environment all along the
garbage surveys from our local utilities. hotel you will see that our teams speak the way. Sometimes it seems like the only
PAGE 4 | Winter 2009 / 2010 | Lodging Engineer
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