Mr. Weissman

Eco-Friendly Practices

How Sustainability Enhances the Guest's Aesthetic Experience; Implications for the Spa Industry

By Arthur Weissman, President and CEO, Green Seal, Inc.

A Really Brief Primer on Aesthetics

First, let's talk a bit about what aesthetics is and how it relates to staying in a lodging property or going to a spa. At its most basic, aesthetics deals with the processing of sensory information in terms of beauty, enjoyment, or artistic sensibility. Aesthetics thus concerns how we perceive our environment in more than simply utilitarian terms. When we enjoy food because it does more than sate our appetite, or feel pleasure at being in a built space because of its appearance or ambience and not just because it puts a roof over our head, we are experiencing our environment aesthetically and could analyze the aesthetic response accordingly.

For a lodging or spa guest, there are clear and important parallels to the above examples in how they experience your property. The exterior of the property, the lobby, the restaurant, and - most important - the guest room should be pleasing in appearance, clean, pleasant to the touch, and odor-free. Unsightly objects, harsh noises, unpleasant sensations, and strong odors or unsavory tastes can severely compromise guest satisfaction from the start and earn your property or chain an irrevocably bad reputation. Put in these terms, the value of aesthetics for guest satisfaction is obvious and of paramount importance, probably even more than the service you provide.

Cleaners and Furnishings

Odor is a powerful sense, and what one smells upon entering a lobby or guest room can shape a guest's entire experience. The products used in cleaning the property, particularly the guest room, may linger long after the room attendant leaves. Many institutional cleaners have strong fragrances, and some of these fragrances may actually be harmful chemicals.

Ideally, cleaning products should not need any fragrances, which are traditionally used to convey a "fresh" odor to a space. Sometimes the active ingredients have unpleasant odors that must be masked, but usually it is customer demand that requires pine odor or some other fragrance as evidence of cleanliness. While Green Seal does not prohibit fragrances in the products it certifies, it does require that fragrances meet all health and environmental criteria of its standards. By using products that meet these standards, you can be sure that the cleaning products will at least be as healthful as they smell.

Another source of odor is the room's furnishings - window treatments, carpet, bedspreads, furniture, pillows, etc. Pressed wood furniture may be bound with urea-formaldehyde, which emits a probable human carcinogen, formaldehyde; other, less-toxic binders are available. Carpet may off-gas harmful volatile compounds for months after installation, primarily from the adhesives used to install it commercially. Look for carpet that meets the Carpet and Rug Institute's labeling program or the Greenguard standards. As for linens and such, organically derived materials are free of pesticides and other treatment chemicals that can cause harmful odors and vapors.

Lighting

Providing the proper amount and type of lighting, to both the interior and the exterior of your property, can be a complicated matter. But there are several ways in which more sustainable lighting solutions can actually help enhance the appearance and "feel" of your property.

First, use natural lighting or daylighting as much as possible instead of artificial lighting. Studies have shown that people are happier and more productive when they get more natural light, which appeals positively to our senses. Your ability to use natural lighting is to some extent dictated by the design of your property or chain, but there are still many opportunities to draw the curtains instead of flipping the switches. Encourage the housekeeping staff to leave room curtains and blinds open and the lights off during the day. Apply window film if necessary to reduce solar insolation that could overheat your property in the warm months. Where your building has skylights or other sources of outside light, use daylight sensors or other systems to adjust artificial lighting accordingly. It looks both wasteful and jarring to have bright lights on in a space that is nicely daylighted.

When you do use artificial lights, using the proper illumination for the area or task will help not only to save energy but also to create pleasing spaces for your guests. There are guidelines for illumination levels put out by the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. Then, achieve the proper illumination by using the most energy-efficient fixtures and lamps possible, typically linear or compact fluorescent lamps. The aesthetic benefit of the latter is that they can now replicate the color temperature and color-rendering of incandescent lamps while being far more efficient and producing less wasteful heat in the room. Finally, properly maintain the light fixtures and their lamps with periodic cleaning and dusting; it doesn't help your property's appearance to have grime all over the lights or bugs caught in the fixtures.

Landscaping

Even more than inside the property, what is done sustainably to the landscape around a property can directly improve its aesthetic appeal.

Green Seal believes in the use of natural landscaping (similar to"xeriscaping"), where native plants are used to ensure they are tolerant of and adapted to the local climate and soils. While exotic plants can be attractive, there is nothing appealing about trees or grasses that are drought-stricken, weather-damaged, or diseased, as is more likely to happen with exotic species that are more vulnerable to conditions they have not evolved for. One could argue, on a deeper aesthetic level, that the natural landscape that has evolved in any biogeographic area has an inherent aesthetic appeal to human perception because the pieces all fit together. Why not use Nature's handiwork and rich diversity developed over the millennia in creative designs around a property rather than try to re-invent the components of the landscape, possibly with disastrous aesthetic results?

Natural landscaping will reduce maintenance of all kinds, including watering, fertilizing, pest prevention, mowing, and repair and replacement. This, in turn, helps reduce resource use (such as water), limit waste and toxic substances (such as pesticides), and cut costs. The result can be an outstanding, aesthetically pleasing adornment to a property.

Implications for the Spa Industry

A few years ago I gave some workshops on sustainable practices at the annual conference of the International Spa Association (ISPA). I introduced these sessions by asking, "What if your spa caresses and pampers your guests with massages and baths, sumptuous foods and emollients.... but.... Assaults your guests with benzene and formaldehyde, styrene and phthalates, pesticides and trihalomethanes.... ?" The question, though rhetorical, was not theoretical. Many everyday products can contain just these chemicals, which can be carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, or have other deleterious health or environmental effects. Ironically, spas, which exist to promote health and well being, can contain these chemicals in their immediate environment or even in the products they use.

Such dissonance is bad aesthetics. Even if our senses don't perceive the problem explicitly, our bodies and minds are being impacted with profoundly conflicting messages - one of welfare, the other of malaise or disease. Certainly the last thing a responsible spa director wants to do is to cause harm to a client the spa is trying to regenerate or make healthier. Spa directors therefore should be particularly conscientious about ensuring that the cleaning products, paints, body-care products, furnishings, and linens used in the spa are environmentally responsible and free of toxic substances.

A truly healthy spa involves the recognition that the guests' health depends on the spa's environment, not just its programs. The spa should use environmentally responsible products and services throughout the premises and operate and maintain the spa with environmental considerations in mind. If there are noxious pollutants in the air, food, or water; lighting that is unnatural or excessive or deficient; visible waste of materials and resources; poorly controlled air flow, temperature, or humidity; or materials that are so artificial or processed as to be uncomfortable to the senses, the guests' aesthetic pleasure will be severely diminished as well as potentially their health and welfare.

Conclusion

There is not, unfortunately, an exact correspondence between aesthetics and sustainability: toxic or environmentally damaging products may not register as such to our senses. But often the converse is true, and there is truly an aesthetic pleasure that comes from products that are renewable, efficient, non-toxic, and well-designed. At a broader scale, your property or chain can gain the benefits of this aesthetic dividend if it embraces more sustainable purchasing and operations.

Arthur B. Weissman, Ph.D., is President and CEO of Green Seal, Inc. He has experience in environmental science, policy, and standard-setting in public and private sectors. He has led the non-profit's resurgence as a force to make the economy more sustainable. He served as an international convener in developing the ISO 14000 standards for environmental labeling, and was the first Chair of the Global Ecolabeling Network. He has developed policy for the Superfund waste-cleanup program, served in the U.S. Senate as a Science Fellow, and worked for The Nature Conservancy. Mr. Weissman can be contacted at 202-872-6400 or aweissman@greenseal.org Extended Bio...

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