Proximity Hotel: Greenest Hotel in America
If you are ever need to stay in Greensboro, North Carolina and want to stay at one of the greenest hotels in the country, you are in luck. The Proximity Hotel is locally-owned and recognized by U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System as the greenest hotel in the country. This 4 star hotel was built to be more sustainable, while still be a world-class hotel and restaurant.
What is LEED?
The U.S. Green Building Council organizes the LEED certification program that is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings throughout America. It also provides building owners the necessary tools to make their buildings more sustainable. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health:
- Sustainable site development
- Water savings
- Energy efficiency
- Materials selection
- Indoor environmental quality
What makes the Proximity Hotel so green?
The USGBC recently gave the Proximity Hotel it’s LEED Platinum award, it’s highest award to green buildings throughout America. This is the first platinum award given to a building within the hospitality industry in America. There is a huge list of sustainable practices that earned this hotel the LEED top award, but top few include:
- It uses 40% less energy and 30% less water than comparable hotels.
- 100 solar panels covering the 4,000 square feet of rooftop that heats 60% of the hotel’s water.
- Regional vendors and artists were used for furniture and artwork.
- Made using many recycled building materials, sustainable woods and salvaged wood.
- A green, vegetated rooftop will be planted on the restaurant.
It’s crazy how many sustainable methods the owners of this hotel used to build this hotel. A cool feature of this hotel is the solar panels that are lined on its rooftop. Not only do they look cool, but they utilize a normally unused space on many buildings. On top of that, it probably saves the hotel tons of money every year in heating costs.
On top of the hotel being green, its restaurant, the Print Works Bistro, has gone above and beyond in terms of sustainability. They provide local foods in many of their dishes, use geothermal energy to power their refrigeration system and use salvaged wood on their tabletops.
Quality and Green?
Just because this is considered to be the greenest hotel in America doesn’t mean it can’t be a world-class hotel with the luxurious look and feel of a 4-star hotel. They provide all the top amenities many top-tier hotels offer including high quality mattress and sheets, LCD TV, local art and are an entirely smoke-free hotel. I have been to a few 4-star hotels and they don’t look as nice this one.
I often check TripAdvisor to get a good idea of how nice a hotel is before choosing it. The Proximity Hotel received 4 1/2 stars out of 5. They are also ranked one of the top hotels in Greensboro in terms of popularity. The price tag to stay at this hotel is fairly expensive at approximately $225 a night, but is the ordinary the price you are going to pay for a 4 star hotel. This hotel is a great example of how a beautiful hotel and restaurant like this one can leave a smaller footprint by using more sustainable methods and still charge a comparable price. Imagine the environmental impact if hotels across the country began using sustainable methods.
Comments
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I’m sure that the greenest hotel is an interesting place for many people. It will be more nice when we concern with how we can arrange the furniture inside. We have to choose the right color, model, and suitable combination of many things. We can try to see and get them accordingly.