“Green tourism is the most important tourism development of our lifetime,” says Steve Shattuck, corporate communications director of Great Wolf Lodge Water Park Resorts.

That’s why, he says, he’s proud of his Madison-based company for becoming the first hotel or lodging chain in the country to have all of its venues certified by the Green Seal program. The chain, with 12 hotel/waterparks, including the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells and the Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan, completed a nearly year-long process of changes at its hotels to be able to announce its certification achievement by Earth Day in April.

Green Seal is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 that does independent, science-based certifications of 40 different categories of products and services. Its certification of lodging includes 30 standards covering energy efficiency, solid waste management, management of fresh water resources and environmentally and socially sensitive purchasing policies.

To obtain the Green Seal certification, Shattuck says, the Great Wolf lodges did the following:
• Changed all showerheads, faucets and plumbing fixtures to low-flow models, to save on water use;
• Adopted guest linen programs that include allowing guests to use towels and other linens for more than one night to save on laundry loads to use less water and less detergent;
• Installed waste recycling bins in guest rooms, public areas and employee areas;
• Changed all incandescent light bulbs to compact, fluorescent bulbs;
• Adopted policies to purchase post-consumer recycled paper products and environmentally friendly cleaning products;
• Installed or replaced appliances with Energy-Star products;
• Reduced temperatures in unoccupied rooms to 62 degrees;
• Adopted a policy to save on energy (and money) through better maintenace and replacement of heating, ventilating and air-conditioning units;
• Donated unused food to local food pantries and composted scraps to reduce solid waste.

The Green Seal certification was only part of a larger effort dubbed Project Green Wolf. The certification covers the lodging, but not the water parks at Great Wolf resorts. But Great Wolf has always recycled and filtered every drop of water used in its water parks, Shattuck says. As the nation’s largest indoor water park chain, it has led the way in developing filtration systems and controls of temperature and humidity to minimize water use.

Another aspect of Project Green Wolf is partnering with National Geographic Kids to provide environmental education activities and crafts for children in the Green Scene areas at the lodges. Project Green Wolf makes National Geographic programs available on all of the televisions in guest rooms.

Great Wolf also hopes to complete certification for its Wisconsin Dells and Sheboygan resorts in Wisconsin’s Travel Green program. Shattuck says many of the initiatives that qualified the lodges for Green Seal certification also count for Travel Green.

Asked about measures of the benefits of Project Green Wolf, Shattuck says the program is too new for many concrete statistics to be available. However, the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos in Pennsylvania has saved nine million gallons of water in a year with its reduced towel and linen use policies. The cost of the investment in low-flow water fixtures at this lodge was recovered in two months with the savings in water and energy bills.

“Surveys of guests at Great Wolf lodges indicated green tourism was important to many of them,” Shattuck says in explaing how Project Green Wolf started. There have been a lot of positive comments from the public since it was started.

“It’s been really great for the staff,” he adds. “It’s a badge of honor for our more than 5,000 employees.”

Shattuck sees a big growth in green tourism in the hospitality industry in general and says that’s good not only for the public and the environment but also for his company. More environmentally aware venues will induce suppliers to make more green products and services readily available at a lower cost.

By John Hill

You can contact John Hill by e-mail at jhoythill@sbcglobal.net.