Las Vegas Hotels are Going Green

These days, just about everyone’s getting involved in the craze to “Go Green”, but for good reason – it saves money! Las Vegas Hotels are no different from any other business – their bottom line is what counts and that bottom line relies heavily on tourist demand, consumer interests, and now more than ever, a forward thinking strategy that integrates eco-conscious hotel operations with the more traditional style of “doing whatever it takes to get them in the door”.

It’s been a long time coming, but hotels around the world are taking notice of the efforts that their patrons have made in their own homes and especially in terms of the dollar amounts being saved by reducing energy consumption, reducing eco-footprints, and just generally being more conscientious about their impacts on the environment. Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in Las Vegas is just one of the many hotels currently producing a dedicated effort to reduce their ecological footprint, and it’s already paid off in spades.

Red Rock’s “Going Green” campaign has included adopting some pretty basic techniques employed by other hotels in Las Vegas, such as replacing traditional lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs, replacing nonessential air conditioning units with energy efficient ceiling fans, utilizing “used linen cards” with instructions on how to reduce water usage and installing low-flow shower heads in their guest rooms, but they’ve also taken things up a notch in other directions.

The deployment of energy efficient urinals, for one thing, seems like a no brainer, but how many other hotels in Las Vegas have taken similar measures? (Anyone?). Motion sensors in the restrooms, meeting rooms, and exercise rooms is an old-trick, but are any of Red Rock’s competitors utilizing LED based lights for ALL of their marquee signs on the buildings, or sending ALL food scraps for reuse and recycling animal feed? I’m sure some of the mega-resorts on the Strip are turning their used kitchen grease and fryer oil into bio-diesel fuel too, but how many of them have installed drift eliminators to automatically shut off water features when the wind is blowing?

Red Rock’s efforts don’t just read well on paper either – they’ve created considerable reductions across a variety of measurements: the Resort recycles about 35 tons of solid waste, 10.5 tons of plastic, aluminum and glass, and 24 tons of cardboard every single month. They’ve reducing energy consumption of their marquee signage by about 85% over conventional incandescent designs, and they’ve saved on average about 8% in electricity annually each year since their Green campaign first launched in 2006. That’s enough electricity to power 375 homes in the Las Vegas Valley!

But it doesn’t stop there, for the Hotel has plans to deploy additional measures estimated to save about the equivalent power of 125 additional homes over the next year. To Red Rock, and other hotels who have implemented similar green-energy practices, we applaud your efforts and we will continue to support you in whatever way possible. Congratulations on achieving record consumption rates while also increasing your bottom line (we noticed that you were fully booked throughout the month of April!). We appreciate your dedication to being one of the only green hotels in Las Vegas!