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Top 10 eco-friendly hotels in North America

As green becomes the new black in the travel world, these are the hottest eco-friendly properties of 2008.

1. The Orchard Garden Hotel
San Francisco
wwwtheorchardgardenhotel.com
Green light: This LEED-certified (U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design program) hotel hasn't sacrificed even an inch of luxury in its pursuit of green perfection. It features nontoxic paints, glues and varnishes, energy-efficient lighting, and Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. If it can be organic or recycled, at the Orchard Garden, you can bet your planet it is.

2. 70 Park Avenue
New York City
www70parkave.com
Green light: In addition to Kimpton Hotels' company-wide EarthCare eco-program, 70 Park Avenue goes one step further with the repurposing of kitchen oil in biodiesel, discounts for hybrid drivers and even an eco-concierge.

3. Gaia Napa
American Canyon, Calif.
wwwgaianapavalleyhotel.com
Green light: Open since fall 2007, the Gaia was constructed with as many recycled materials and as little energy as possible. Recycled carpet content and low-emission paint also star, as does every luxurious feature you can imagine, including a decadent spa.

4. Zion Lodge
Zion, Utah
wwwzionlodge.com
Green light: Zion's Green Suites (including sustainable features such as bamboo floors, recycled carpet content, organic linens and key card lighting controls) are testing grounds for the ambitious project of making all 5,000 Xanterra-operated rooms as environmentally sustainable as possible. The Xanterra-operated resort won the Sustainable Hotel of the Year Award for its efforts.

5. Hotel Triton
San Francisco
wwwhoteltriton.com
Green light: Hotel Triton started with an eco-floor back in the 1990s; this spread to all floors in 2003, and its environmental efforts inspired Kimpton Hotels' current company-wide eco-program.

6. Hilton
Vancouver, Wash.
wwwhilton.com
Green light: This hotel just across the bridge from Portland, Ore., recycled 75 percent of its construction waste and continues to live up to its LEED certification by offering refueling stations for electric cars, conserving water, reducing energy use, and with a local eco-friendly philosophy that extends to the hotel's restaurant, Gray's at the Park.

7. Marriott
Bethesda, Md.
wwwmarriott.com/wasum
Green light: The blueprint for future green Marriott hotels, this was the first hotel and conference center in the United States to win LEED certification for its environmental design.

8. Hotel Monaco
Seattle
wwwmonaco-seattle.com
Green light: While it would quite easy to fill an eco Top 10 entirely with Kimpton properties, this one stands out for the way executive chef Jason McClure of the hotel's Sazerac makes every effort to integrate green hues into his kitchen, from eco-initiatives such as recycling, composting food and using organic, local foods and sustainable seafood, to making the switch to recyclable or recycled to-go containers.

9. Hotelito Desconocido
Jalisco, Mexico
wwwhotelito.com
Green light: Solar power and candles are used instead of electricity and accommodations are bamboo, palm leaf,and clay huts in a protected wetland estuary overlooking the Pacific.

10. Habitat Suites
Austin, Texas
wwwhabitatsuites.com
Green light: Part of the Green Hotels Association since 1991, natural pesticides (ladybugs!), cooling shade trees and a substantial amount of its power from a photovoltaic system, feature at the Habitat Suites.

Honorable mentions:
Maho Bay Camp, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islandds; wwwmaho.org

DoubleTree Lloyd Center, Portland, Ore.; wwwdoubletreeportlandgree.com

The Equus Hotel, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii; wwwaquaresorts.com

Solage, Calistoga, Calif.; wwwsolagecalistoga.com

Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui, Hawaii; wwwfairmont.com

The Woodstocker Inn, Woodstock, Vt.; wwwwoodstockervt.com

Ambrose Hotel, Los Angeles; wwwambrosehotel.com

Seaport Hotel, Boston;
wwwseaportboston.com

Ahu Pohaku Ho'omaluhia, Kohala, Big Island, Hawaii;
wwwhawaii-island-retreat.com

Inn by the Sea, Cape Elizabeth, Maine; wwwinnbytheseacom

Departments at every Ritz-Carlton hotel

Administration/General
This department is made up of several areas including the General Manager's office, Engineering, Accounting, Purchasing, Human Resources, Retail and Sales and Marketing. These departments are described in greater detail below.

Audio Visual
The Audio Visual department supports the Food & Beverage and Meetings/Special Events departments by providing audio (sound), light, projection and other services to guests who hold meetings and events at our hotels.

Beach Club
Guests of the hotel enjoy privileges to the Members Beach Club, including use of the Members Spa, within the hotel, and the Beach Club. The Members Spa features treatment rooms offering a variety of health, wellness and beauty treatments, a fitness center and a beauty salon. The Beach Club includes a magnificent restaurant, beachfront pool and whirlpool and stunning views of the coastline.

Casino
A few Ritz-Carlton hotels also operate a Casino. The Casino department employs qualified, experienced people in positions such as Slot Cashier, Dealers, Table Games Supervisor etc. The Casino is an entertainment facility where various games involving gambling are played.

Condominium/Residences
The Ritz-Carlton offers condominiums and private residences that may or may not be physically attached to the hotel. These are beautiful homes that guests purchase and live in for extended periods of time. Hotel services and facilities are available to the residents, such as service of food and beverages in their home, cleaning and servicing of their home and access to recreational facilities at the Hotel.

Engineering
Our hotels need to be kept continuously in an excellent state of maintenance and repair for the safety and comfort of our guests and employees. This department ensures that air conditioning, heating, ventilation, water supply, sewage, furniture, carpeting, painting etc. are kept in good working condition at all times.

Finance/Accounting
All transactions involving cash, billing, purchasing and other numerical data processing and reporting are done in this department. This department also assists with the preparation of the annual budgets and the profit and loss statements and other accounting reports.

Finance Purchasing/Receiving
This department ensures that all the products, food and beverage, equipment and other operating supplies required to run the hotel are ordered in a timely manner, received, checked and stored until they are needed by the operating departments.

Fitness/Recreation
This department includes services and facilities to enhance the well-being and health of our guests by offering Tennis, Golf, Massage, Swimming and a Fitness Center among other activities.

Food & Beverage: Restaurants/Bars/Lounges
This includes all the restaurants, bars and lounges that are located throughout the hotel.

Food & Beverage: Banquets
This department sets up the rooms where small and large meetings and events including weddings and receptions are held. They take place in the various conference rooms and ballroom of the hotel. They also provide the service of food and drink to the guests at these events. The Banquet Department coordinates the details of an event as it is happening, executing the requests the guests have made prior to their arrival and responding to any unexpected needs of each guest.

Food & Beverage: Culinary
This department includes all the kitchens of the hotel. Typically, a hotel will have a Main Kitchen, a satellite Fine Dining Restaurant Kitchen, a Banquet Kitchen, a Cold Kitchen, a Pastry Kitchen and sometimes, a Pool Kitchen. These various kitchens order, receive, store and prepare all the meals in the Hotel. They also prepare the beautiful buffets and the guest room food amenities.

Food & Beverage Night Cleaners
Since the food and beverage areas are all very busy from morning to night, much of the cleaning activity must take place overnight to ensure that the highest levels of cleanliness and hygiene are maintained in all food preparation and service areas.

Food & Beverage: Room Service
Also known as In-Room Dining, this department provides meal and beverage service to the guest in his/her room. The meal is always beautifully presented, as if the guest were at a table in one of our restaurants. This department operates 24 hours of the day.

Food & Beverage: Stewarding
This department stores, cleans and distributes all the equipment (glassware, silverware, chinaware) that is needed in food and beverage service for our guests. This Stewarding department supports the entire food and beverage operation, providing important equipment supply and cleaning services to the kitchen and to every food and beverage outlet.

Food & Beverage: Storeroom
This is the storeroom where all fresh produce, meat, dairy and preserved foods as well as beverages are stored at the correct temperatures and in an orderly way until they are needed for preparation in the kitchens.

Golf
Some of our hotels offer golf facilities to our guests. This department ensures that all the guests' needs with regard to playing golf are met. This includes the management of the landscaping, irrigation, golf buggies, golf retail store etc.

Human Resources
This department ensures the well being of all employees. It also assists the other departments with their recruiting and selection activities so that they are adequately staffed.

Human Resources Training
Every employee receives an average of 250 hours of training every year. This department ensures that the various training programs are made available to employees.

Information Systems / Technology
This department ensures that all the computers and computer systems in the hotel are installed correctly and run properly at all times. This department also ensures the efficient functioning of the telephone switchboard equipment.

Loss Prevention / Security
The Loss Prevention department ensures the safety and security of all guests, employees, their property and the hotel building and the equipment contained within it.

Meetings & Special Events
The Meetings/Special Events Department coordinates all details involved with group bookings, working closely with meeting planners to arrange all rooming, food and beverage details, meeting facility specifications, and any additional requirements of the group. The Meetings & Special Events Managers partner with company event planners prior to their arrival to understand, manage, record and coordinate the details of each event and to communicate these to the relevant departments. The role of the Meetings & Special Events manager is to be the liaison between the planner and the hotel operational departments. The team works to ensure the guest's utmost satisfaction with the event. The Meetings & Special Events department is responsible for accurate forecasting of group rooms, banquet food and beverage and for achieving overall hotel budgeted revenue.

Quality
The Quality department makes sure that the quality sciences are known and energized by all employees and that all decisions are made using quality tools.

Retail
Most hotels have one or several retail outlets. These include shops that sell logo items and other sundry items. The Retail Manager ensures that items are ordered in a timely manner and displayed in an enticing way.

Rooms Division: Club Level
Every Ritz-Carlton hotel has a hotel within the hotel, known as the Club Level. Guests staying on these floors pay a premium and have access to a private lounge with five complimentary food and beverage presentations, dedicated concierge and separate check-in/check out facilities.

Rooms Division: Concierge
The Concierge department is there to answer the guest's inquiries about the city and its surroundings, make reservations at restaurants, theaters, sightseeing tours and many other services.

Rooms Division: Front Desk / Front Office
The Front Desk or Front Office department checks the guest into the hotel on arrival, provides much of the initial information that the guest needs to quickly feel at home and answers their questions and generally facilitates their arrival. They also check the guest out on departure.

Rooms Division: Communications
This staff of this department answer all in-coming telephone calls, assist guests with long-distance calling information and provides wake-up calls.

Rooms Division: Guest Services

The Front Door: Often the first person the arriving guest sees is the Door Person, who will open the door and extend a warm welcome to the guest. This department also takes care of the arriving and departing guest's luggage, calling taxis and parking the guest's vehicle.

The Bell Desk: The guests' luggage is brought to and from the room by the Bellpersons who also provide the guest with the hotel orientation and with much needed information such as the hotel hours of operation, shoeshine service etc.

Rooms Division: Housekeeping
This department is charged with keeping the hotel clean and in order, to include twice daily service of all guest rooms and the maintenance of all public and heart-of-house areas. Our guests expect the very highest levels of cleanliness when they enter a Ritz-Carlton hotel. This department plays an important role in meeting this expectation.

Rooms Division: Laundry
This department cleans all of the hotel's linens and terry to include rooms and food and beverage. Guest's laundry and dry cleaning needs are also processed through this department.

Rooms Division: Transportation / Garage
The Transportation department oversees the parking garage and also any special transportation needs that a guest might have.

Rooms Division: Guest Relations
This department is responsible for engineering surprises and anticipating our guests' needs, by pre-calling all guests prior to their arrival to help garner preferences, identify special occasions and offer additional hotel services.

Public Relations
The Public Relations department ensures that the image of the hotel and the company in the local community is always maintained at the very highest level. They also make press releases whenever there is something important to announce and maintain excellent media relations.

Sales Reservations & Revenue Management
The Reservations department takes calls, emails and faxes from guests and makes their room reservations for arrival at a future date. The Revenue Management department establishes the optimal room rate at any given time, based on demand and other market variables.

Sales & Marketing
This department sells the hotel and all its services and brings in the guests. Sales people have targets to meet and their goal is to keep the hotel busy all year.

Sales & Marketing: Catering Sales
The Catering Sales Department sells, plans, and coordinates all social and local corporate catering events such as weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, retirement parties, society events, local functions and meetings. After booking the event, the catering sales department works with event planners to understand, record and coordinate the details of what the guest is looking for and communicate these to the relevant departments. The team works to ensure the guest's utmost satisfaction at the event. Each catering sales manager is also responsible for individual booking goals and for achieving departmental budget requirements.

Sales & Marketing: Conference Sales
This department sells the space that guests need to hold their meetings and social events in our hotels. They also take care of recording and sharing with the appropriate departments all the details (other than food and beverage needs, which are handled by the catering department) related to the function such as flowers, audio-visual needs, table layout etc.

Spa
The Spa department operates almost like a hotel with a hotel. It offers separate services such as reservations, housekeeping, front desk and concierge. It may be joined to a fitness center or a Golf Club or a Resort Hotel, and will operate as a profitable business unit. In addition to the services mentioned above, the Spa department employs certified massage therapists, nutrition consultants, wellness coordinators, nail technicians, and hair stylists.