With current trends towards the greening of the hospitality industry it seems like a logical step to include hotel fitness centers as environmental models for sustainable design and operations. After all, these two sectors share a common thread - achieving optimal health, be it personal or environmental. It seems ironic to think that fitness centers of the past, created to support health and well being, could have adversely affected both its inhabitants and the environment. With proper planning, design, and operations your hotel fitness center can achieve the stewardship needed to be at the forefront of an ever-important shift to the incorporation of green practices within the fitness industry.

Green design is fairly new in the fitness industry. Currently, there are only a handful of green fitness centers. Unfortunately, since there is no standard for green gyms outside of LEED certification, most of these centers have adopted only a few of the many different environmental elements that go into green gym design. From the sustainable environment angle, designing fitness centers with elements such as recycled flooring makes perfect sense however the process need not stop there. Green gym design is a much broader subject that involves not only incorporating environmentally friendly ...