Marriott Heads for Zero Net Waste in Five Years

Marriott International, Inc. headquarters will begin lessening the load on area landfills by eliminating 2.5 million pieces, or 20 tons, of Styrofoam and plastic utensils annually. The old products will be replaced with those made of potato ("SpudWare(TM)"), sugar cane and cornstarch, all fully biodegradable within an average of 100 days.

This industry-leading effort is part of a comprehensive global campaign to reduce Marriott’s environmental footprint and save energy costs.

"This is just one step toward Marriott’s efforts to integrate environmental sustainability into our business strategy, acting both locally at our headquarters and globally across our 3,000 hotels in nearly 70 countries," said Arne Sorenson, co-chair of the company’s Green Council and Chief Financial Officer and President, Continental European Lodging.

To encourage employees to leave a smaller environmental footprint, Marriott headquarters has designated 30 parking spaces for drivers of hybrid vehicles, and will distribute free reusable "to go" mugs and water
bottles to employees to encourage conservation.

Green ambassadors from throughout the company will teach employees green office strategies, with demonstrations on recycling, composting and energy conservation.

"With more than 3,000 employees at Marriott Headquarters, if we all do our part, we can definitely make a difference-both at the office and at home," says Jim Young, Senior Director of Corporate Facilities at Marriott’s headquarters.

Earlier this year, Marriott announced that it’s on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly one million cubic tons by 2010-the equivalent of removing approximately 140,000 cars from the road.

To see Marriott’s environmental initiatives in action, visit YouTube for a short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eiCEMp45U8 . For more information on Marriott’s green initiatives, visit http://www.marriott.com/truegreen. 

Technorati Tags: Marriott, energy conservation, green strategies, spudware

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