A guest room in the Old Bangkok Inn, where fixtures were made from salvaged teak wood and sunlight heats the water.

By JENNIFER CONLIN

A decade ago, the term “eco-friendly accommodation’’ usually meant snuggling up under a thick quilt at a chilly mountain lodge, eating vegetables from the owner’s garden and recycling your trash before hitting the nearby nature trails.
Now the term is becoming compatible with both “luxury” and “cities,” as more chain and boutique hotels - with views of skyscrapers not trees - incorporate sustainable green practices into their policies.
Among some prominent examples: the Apex City of London Hotel (www.apexhotels. co.uk), which has an environmental blog updating customers on the hotel’s most recent green initiatives; the Ibis Porte Clichy Centre in Paris (www.ibishotel. com), which features a photovoltaic facade that draws solar power; and the Lenox Hotel in Boston (www.lenoxhotel. com), one of the first hotels to offer climateneutral rooms and offset carbon emissions for electricity by 100 percent.
“I am seeing the biggest growth ever right now when it comes to hotels adopting green policies, and it is in the cities and suburbs as well, says Kit Cassingham, founder of the three-year-old EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels. com, which now lists more than 2,800 green hotels around the world and rates them by green trees rather than stars, the rating determined by how many of 29 criteria listed on the Web site they meet.
(The list includes everything from composting, to gray-water recycling, to community service .) Kathryn Potter, senior vice president for marketing and communications at the American Hotel & Lodging Association, has also noticed a new eco-attitude in the industry.
“In 1996 we launched a towel and linen program, and all the high-end hotels said they couldn’t possibly participate because their guests expected top service,” said Ms. Potter, whose association offered members the now-familiar cards that allow guests to request not to have their bedding and towels changed daily.
“We recently launched a ‘Green Best Practices’ list, and we had more than a thousand hits in the first two weeks, which for us was astounding,” she added .
At the eight-room Old Bangkok Inn in Thailand, Nantiya Tulyanond, the hotel’s owner, made the environment a priority when she turned the old family house into a hotel.
“I felt strongly that we wanted to reduce our impact and try to be a green hotel,” she said .
No trees were cut down during the inn’s renovation, and most of the fixtures were constructed from salvaged teak wood, with the worn details in the rebuilt wood adding to the authenticity and charm of the rooms.
More critical is the Old Bangkok Inn’s solar energy program.
Sunlight streams through panels on the roof, not only flooding the upstairs hallway with light (reducing the need for electricity) but also heating the hot water for the entire hotel. There are low-flow showerheads and matching low-flow toilets .
But being green is not just about saving the environment, it is also now about saving money.
Hugo Germain, a thirdgeneration family member of the Groupe Germain company that has been bringing boutique hotels to Canada since the 90s, can attest to the cost benefits of creating a green hotel in a city.
In September, he became the general manager of the first ALT Hotel, in Montreal.
“We wanted to break ground here and offer a low-priced, yet chic, green hotel,’’ said Mr. Germain.
Already, he is seeing a savings of nearly 35 percent on the geothermal heating system the company installed when the hotel was built.
He has been able to pass that savings on to the consumer.
All of the hotel’s 159 rooms are 129 Canadian dollars a night, he said .
“We are planning to open them in 15 different cities across Canada,” he said.
“I think when it comes to choosing a hotel, if it is well priced but green, people will pick the green one.”