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Climate Action Offsetter: The Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle
written by the Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle
Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle is a luxury hotel located in the innovative South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle, home to cutting edge technology companies and innovative life sciences organizations. In 2010, the hotel made a conscious decision to institute a comprehensive sustainability program called PanEarth, which honors the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.
The program began as a conscious effort to place sustainable and environmentally friendly practices as a top priority. Through the PanEarth program, Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle offers guests two options to offset their hotel stay and travel time. The sustainable travel option allows guests to mitigate the impact of their air and car travel by purchasing Climate Reserve Tonnes from a landfill project through our partner, Seattle-based OneEnergy Renewables. Transparency and legitimacy are important values of the PanEarth program. Having our offsets issued by a highly esteemed organization such as the Reserve supports these values. In addition, our program provides our guests the opportunity to follow the life cycle of their contribution, from verification through implementation.
The second option is the environmentally neutral hotel stay, which encourages conscientious environmental practices during a guest’s hotel visit. When guests financially match the electricity use of an average stay in one of our rooms, their contribution supports about 40 kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean, wind energy going onto the US electricity grid. The wind energy for our hotel stay program is supported in the form of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), which are sourced from facilities in both Washington State and North Dakota.
We chose to incorporate offsets into our PanEarth program because we are committed to being a hospitality leader in the area of Global Social Responsibility and believe that sustainable practices enhance guests’ and associates’ health as well as their experience with the property. In short, we believe makes business sense. It’s a win win for all of us.
P.S. Would you like to be featured in the Reserve newsletter and earn a free reusable Reserve water bottle? Each monthly newsletter, the Reserve will showcase an individual or organization who has retired CRTs to offset their emissions. To submit an entry, please share a few paragraphs (up to 350 words) about you and your decision to offset. Photos are welcome! Featured submissions in the newsletter will earn water bottles, and all submitted entries will be posted on the Reserve web blog. Email your entries to: rhey@climateactionreserve.org.
This is an excellent opportunity to highlight your environmental stewardship and advancement of climate solutions. This is also an excellent opportunity to raise awareness of outstanding GHG reduction projects.
Public comment period open for draft Nitric Acid Production Project Protocol Version 2.0 – public webinar on August 31
Summer Reading Recommendations from the Reserve Staff
Hopefully your summer days are filled with lazing around in the warm afternoon sun with a good book. As you enjoy the sun’s heat on your beach towel or hammock or even airplane seat, you may find yourself pondering about the growing accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Climate Action Reserve staff would like to recommend the following books with a connection to climate change solutions. We are as intent on fighting climate change as Harry Potter is about defeating Voldemort! Reparo climate!
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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond A must read for any environmentalist, Diamond’s 2005 book Collapse artfully tells the story of how natural resource management decisions of societies (both past and present) influenced those societies’ ultimate successes and failures. Diamond’s attempt to apply lessons learned by these societies to problems facing our society today, like deforestation and climate change, helped propel me into a career in the environmental sector. |
Teresa Lang, Policy Associate |
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The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey I love the book for its vivid depictions of the hard beauty and expanse of the West and for the strong passion that its characters bring to protecting that beauty. Even while I disagree with the tactics employed by the protagonists, I cannot help but admire their motivation and the lengths that they are willing to go for a cause they believe in. I also appreciate how utterly American the characters are in their fierce independence and iconoclasm. And, it is a good story well told. |
Gary Gero, President |
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Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet by Edward Hume I may not entirely agree with all of the conclusions drawn in this book, but I found it to be a pretty interesting backstory on a number of major environmental players in the U.S. today. The sections on forest conservation in Maine and the Center for Biological Diversity were especially thought-provoking. | Max DuBuisson, Policy Manager |
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In Search of Nature by Edward O. Wilson This book is a collection of essays ranging from the beauty and diversity of species to mankind’s apparent assault on the planet (with a mention of rising CO2 levels and the ultimate consequences). It is at the same time heart-wrenching and uplifting, while brilliantly written. Wilson’s contrasts of nature and human nature are eye-opening and provocative and he reminds the reader just how much we have to fight for. | Gillian Calof, Operations Director |
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Acme Climate Action by Provokateur The best interactive activity book for adults: teach your family and friends about climate change and what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. Includes appliance stickers, postcards, envelope address stickers, carbon footprint counter, environmental performance report cards, posters, climate change trivia cards, and a detachable booklet about climate change and simple solutions. All in one stylish, retro package. All pages can be removed, passed along, used and reused. Share the knowledge and have fun! http://www.acmeclimateaction.com/ | Heather Raven, Policy Coordinator |
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The Sixth Extinction: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind by Terry Glavin, 2007 Glavin does a great job at capturing and laying out the value of biodiversity and our planet’s ecological history in descriptions of his travels and examples of uncommon species. The bad news is that it’s all in the context of one of the largest extinction events in Earth’s history, the one happening right now. This mass extinction of animals, plants, languages, and culture, Glavin argues, is unique in that the root causes are anthropogenic activities. The reasoning is not always air-tight, but his research is sound and the statistics he cites are very convincing, if not shocking. To give you an idea, we (as a planet) lose “a distinct species every minute, a unique vegetable variety every six hours, [and] an entire language every two weeks.” If you have any interest in biodiversity and conservation, or even if you just like learning about cool stuff like the monster fish in the Amur River or that apples are members of the rose family, I recommend checking out this book. The writing style is very anecdotal as well, which makes for a quick read. | Mark Havel, Program Assistant |
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Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne David Byrne takes you on a journey of cities around the world from the point of view of a musician/artist/bicyclist traveling on a folding bicycle. He provides insights into urban planning as he’s experienced the streets and shares how cities could be smartly designed to accommodate and encourage the bi-pedal mode of transportation. Complete with colorful and unique stories of interactions with local culture, this book is an excellent celebration of bicycling. If we all chose to travel by bicycle, no matter the difficulties and potholes and traffic circles and sweaty pits, we would have a healthier climate and healthier communities. | Rhey Lee, Communications Associate |
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Uno’s Garden by Graeme Base I honestly don’t read too many grown up books on environmental issues these days as I am mostly reading parenting books when I have the time or energy. But I do enjoy reading children’s books with my kids that celebrate the environment. A current favorite is Uno’s Garden. The book is about the multi-generational effects of not caring for the environment and the importance of being good stewards of the earth. The story reinforces appreciation of forests, plants and animals, while teaching kids about our impact on nature and opportunities to live more sustainably. The book also features games with number concepts. | Katie Bickel Goldman, Senior Policy Manager |
Reserve submits comments on California’s revised cap-and-trade regulation to ARB
Future Protocol Development webpage improved to include project concept submission process, protocol development criteria, list of concept submissions to date, and completed issue papers
Beta Version 3.0 of the Livestock Calculation Tool is now available. It is recommended for use in all livestock project calculations and emissions reduction reports
Errata and Clarifications released for U.S. Landfill V3.0, V2.1, V2.0; U.S. Livestock V3.0, V2.2, V2.1; and Organic Waste Composting V1.0
Gary Gero testifies before the CA Senate Select Committee on the Environment, the Economy & Climate Change