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Behind-the-Scenes Green: San Francisco’s Intercontinental Hotel

Peter Greenberg Worldwide
Locations in this article:  San Francisco, CA

Intercontinental Hotel San FranciscoHow do you know if a hotel is truly eco-friendly?

Leslie Garrett, The Virtuous Traveler, continues her series of spotlights on what hotels are doing behind the scenes that most guest never even see.

Harry Hobbs, engineer for the Intercontinental San Francisco, has little patience for environmentalists such as me, intent on convincing people of the necessity to live green.

Hobbs doesn’t much care where you stand on climate change.

For him, making the changes necessary to ensure his building’s LEED gold certification (expected by year end) is simply good business sense.

“I don’t know whether we’re pausing global warming or not,” he says. “But a wasteful practice is a wasteful practice.”

It’s a no-nonsense approach that has led to a truly remarkable makeover.

For more eco-friendly vacations, visit our Eco-Travel section

With the InterContinental SF’s soaring translucent blue glass façade, high ceilings and bright modern décor, it hardly strikes the visitor as a testament to green.

Facade of the Intercontinental San FranciscoWhich, it turns out, is precisely the point.

General manager Peter Koehler and his staff know that not everyone chooses their hotel with eco-principles in mind. And that’s fine with them.

But whether or not you know it, your stay is being greened the minute you give your name at reception.

It’s at that point that an Inncom system sends electronic instructions to the thermostat in your room to prepare for your arrival. Whether that means warming it up or cooling it down, it most definitely means comfort… and cost-savings for the hotel.

But there’s more. Plenty more.

Highly efficient LEDs light the lobby, despite a needle-in-a-haystack search that involved testing 25 unsatisfying versions before discovering the one that offered up efficiency with no compromise on ambiance. And those LED lights are nonetheless powered by renewable energy, which powers the entire hotel.

For more green hotels, check out more from this series:

The sun powers the trash compacter. A regenerative braking system in the elevator generates energy on the downward trip, while using it going up.

Will you notice any of this? Probably not.

Front of the Intercontinental San FranciscoJust as you likely won’t notice that your room’s thermostat is positioned slightly away from the wall, after it was discovered that such a small move made it far more accurate—a 6-degree difference either way—in reading the room temperature, rather than the temperature of the wall.

Or that your morning shower dumped considerably less water down the drain, thanks to low-flow faucets.

Or that the lunch you simply couldn’t eat another bite of—despite it consisting of locally sourced organic meat and produce—isn’t destined for landfill but for compost.

If, however, you are interested in making your stay as green as possible … well … the staff is happy to help you along, too. Just don’t be too obvious about it.

By Leslie Garrett for PeterGreenberg.com. Pictures via the Intercontinental San Francisco. Leslie Garrett is an award-winning journalist and author of The Virtuous Consumer: Your Essential Shopping Guide for a Better, Kinder, Healthier World. Visit her atwww.virtuousconsumer.com.

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