L.A. businesses can now vie to be touched by an angel. The first announcement was made a few hours ago. The city of L.A. is launching a green business certification program. Liberty Hill’s Green L.A. Coalition was instrumental in getting it off the ground.
Why does it matter? It creates incentives for businesses to go green. Save money while saving the planet. We've crunched some numbers. Here are 8 implications:
1. Hotels that replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents will save 65 percent on overall lighting costs and
energy usage in guestrooms.
2. One hotel that replaces 300 older toilets with 1.6 gallons per flush models, will yield an approximate annual savings of 308,000 gallons of water and $1,163 dollars.
3. A composting program will reduce the number of dumpsters needing to be emptied by more than 60%, having a huge impact on trash hauling expenses and reducing trash taken to local landfills.
4. Revamping administrative systems aimed at reducing office paper use (double-sided printing, more email, etc.) will result in consumption reduced by 20% at no additional cost.
5. One 300-room hotel switching to a bath tissue with 100% post-consumer content would save approximately 4 tons of virgin paper, 48 trees, 16,400 kwh of electricity, 28,000 gallons of water and 240 pounds of air pollutants annually.
6. One hotel has earned approximately $2 million in additional revenue from new businesses seeking green hotels for rooms and meetings.
7. The city of LA has more than 300 hotels, employing more than 14,000 workers; Improvements in indoor air quality and eliminating or reducing toxics in laundry and janitorial products will improve worker conditions, lower absenteeism due to health related issues and improve worker productivity.
8. Businesses are able to immediately see savings in utility bills and waste hauling fees, strengthening the sustainability of small and medium sized businesses, allowing greater job opportunities and strengthening the revenue stream to the city while improving local economic stability.
For more information check out the article in the L.A. Times.
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