First, I am excited to tell you that earlier this month, our headquarters building in Bethesda, Maryland, was certified as LEED-Gold, which is the U.S. Green Building Council’s gold standard for energy efficient and eco-friendly design. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and has been embraced around the world.
Transforming our headquarters into a sustainable and environmentally-friendly building will save our company $700,000 annually and we expect to receive up to $1.3 million in tax credits over the next 3 years. As of today, we have 40 hotels across nine of our Marriott brands that are already LEED-certified or LEED-registered, so it was only fitting that our headquarters became a model for “green” design, too. Over the next 5 years we expect to grow our green portfolio to nearly 300 hotels with LEED-certification.
One of the ways we plan to achieve such rapid growth is by developing green “prototypes” for our select service and extended stay brands to help make the design and construction process for LEED-certified hotels faster, easier and less expensive for our owners. Our Courtyard brand has already completed its prototype and we hope to introduce the prototypes for other brands in the near future.
Also in honor of Earth Day, many of our hotels are taking part in their own green initiatives or activities. For example, our new Ritz-Carlton in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is also a LEED-Gold building, has been hosting a small electronics recycling drive all week. Guests and members of the local community are encouraged to drop off their old electronic devices under 50 pounds to be recycled in a safe, environmentally-friendly manner. The hotel has also been dimming their lights for what they call “Earth Night” each night this week. They use the warmth and glow of natural candlelight while employing an energy-respectful, simple guiding light for a portion of each evening.
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