Grand Wailea Resort: Green with envy

The Maui News
Monday, March 14, 2005

By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

WAILEA – At the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa, Director of Engineering Rob Hoonan ordered his staff to gradually reduce the temperature of hot water from 124 degrees, the industry standard.

The water got cooler and cooler, with no complaints, until one day it was delivered at 113 degrees. That got complaints.

So Hoonan raised it to 114 degrees, where it has stayed since. The 10-degree difference has resulted in a tremendous savings in energy, he says.

While that wasn't on the list, the Grand Wailea's comprehensive resource saving and recycling program won Gov. Linda Lingle's annual Green Business Award for 2004.

Some green initiatives, like dispensing hot water at a lower temperature, cost nothing but management time and interest. Others involve considerable investment. Hoonan says his superiors at KSL, the management company, make him justify his changes but are on board with the direction of the program.

It isn't always a matter of measuring investment against return. Some initiatives, says Hoonan, like the 19 recycling stations (glass, aluminum, tin cans, paper, and green and food waste) do not pay their way but are kept "because it is the right thing to do."

The Green Business Award – judged jointly by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii – recognizes organizations that go beyond compliance to conserve energy, water and other resources, and to reduce pollution and waste.

"Grand Wailea Resort feels strongly about setting an example of responsible stewardship, and views saving resources and recycling as an integral part of conducting day-to-day business," said General Manager Matthew Hart.

Although some components may seem small, like switching off lights in unused rooms, part of the justification for investing the management time to promote them is, he says, to "create a way of life" both at work and at home.

Of course, says Hoonan, as electricity rates climb and climb, it becomes easier and easier to justify energy-saving reforms to the financial managers. He has had employees bring him their home electric bills for advice on cutting back.

When the 40-acre Grand Wailea opened in 1991, Maui Electric sold power for around 7 cents or 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. To day, the price is around 19 cents, and Hart says he is very conscious of the resort's utility bill, more than $100,000 a month.

Consumption of water is also a big issue at the resort.

Fortunately, just in the 15 years the resort has been open, technologies have advanced on several relevant fronts.

Recently, for example, the hotel replaced a water-filtration system that handles 770,000 gallons per day from its main activity pools. The previous system, only about six years old, required 200,000 gallons of water a week to backwash the filters.

Mike Burgett, the landscape manager, says the new system, which relies on recycled crushed glass instead of sand, consumes about 5,000 gpd for cleaning the filters.

The 66-person engineering staff constantly is reviewing inputs and output. Sometimes they get a three-fer: If an improved pump requires a smaller electric motor, then the replacement with a high-efficiency motor can save water, power and money all at the same time.

In some cases, says Hoonan, the move to expensive high-efficiency electric motors may not represent strict economy, in dollars and cents, but it is often the correct strategy anyway.

In general, though, changes need to pay their own way. "This is a business, not a charity," says Hoonan.

As a rule of thumb in the hotel business, upgrades are expected to meet a two-year return on investment. That is, their net cost should be saved by operating gains within two years.

There is more than one way to judge return on investment, says Hoonan, and as custodians of a large part of the island's resources, he feels a responsibility for those resources.

This means a continuing investment in management efforts. Grand Wailea is set up with meters all over to monitor the flows of water, propane and electricity. If usage goes up in one sector, the alarm goes out to find the cause.

Managers monitor nearly 20 meters daily to keep on top of the extensive back-of-the-house operations.

Some ventures in green management are more sensitive than others. A recent move to a high-silica filtration system for the cooling towers is a case in point.

The high-silica technology is more efficient but more delicately poised. If the system is not monitored every day, says Hoonan, the towers could be seriously and expensively damaged.

Green waste is another area in which purely monetary considerations might not have persuaded the accountants, says Hoonan.

The resort's landscapers send their cuttings to Maui EKO Compost and bring back vast amounts of composted material. The coconut palms seem more resistant to disease on a compost diet than they did on chemical fertilizers.

Ideally, says Burgett, what goes around comes around. Even the scrapings from plates in the restaurants, sold to pig farmers, come back in the form of pork chops.

Hoonan says Maui resorts led the way in comprehensive recycling, and he served on a solid waste task force inspired by J. Kalani English when English was on the County Council.

Hoonan considers it "a travesty" that the rest of the island has not caught up with the resorts, and he thinks Maui should have curbside recycling, as is increasingly common in California.

One of the more expensive ventures has been combined heat and power, or CHP, also called cogeneration. This has been a big success, with propane-powered diesel electric generators taking parts of the resort off the electric grid and allowing recapture of the exhaust heat.

The spa and the main swimming pool now are heated with CHP-saved exhaust heat.

Some of the resort's ventures are almost industry-standard now, such as sensors that turn off guest-room air conditioning when the lanai door is open.

Others, Hoonan says, were developed in house, and he has a program asking employees for their own ideas.

A partial list of Grand Wailea's Green Sheet includes:

• CHP, which earned the resort a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Department of Energy Certification of Recognition in October.
• Compact fluorescent light bulbs in guest rooms.
• Colortran lighting control systems for public areas and meeting rooms, timers on landscape and water-feature lighting, motion sensor lighting in offices and storage rooms.
• A tempered water system for domestic hot water that captures waste heat from the evaporator and preheats the domestic water supply.
• A new "Green Earth" environmentally friendly dry cleaning system for dry cleaning guest items.
• Recycling 10 tons of green waste per month into compost.
• Using old, discarded sheets from guest rooms instead of plastic bags to collect clippings.
• Planting salt-resistant paspalum grass throughout the resort.
• Planting native drought-resistant plants.
• Discontinuing spraying; plants are doctored with systemic pesticides.
• Installing Rain Bird's "Maxicom" computerized irrigation system.

Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2005 The Maui News

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