About the Green Lodging Calculator
The Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (NEWMOA) developed the Green Lodging Calculator to help lodging facilities and sustainable hospitality programs estimate the financial and environmental benefits from sustainable practices. The Calculator is the culmination of a multi-year effort aimed at improving the methodologies used for estimating and communicating the positive environmental and financial benefits of sustainable lodging practices. For more information on this effort, visit: www.newmoa.org/prevention/projects/hospitality/measurement.cfm.
The calculator contains over 40 waste-, water-, and energy-related measures covering 18 common practices that lodging facilities can implement. These are only some of the sustainable activities that can result in environmental and financial savings. Many third-party certification programs, as well as state and local certification/recognition programs promote additional sustainable practices that are yet to be built into the Calculator. NEWMOA encourages the development and sharing of measures for these practices with the hope of adding them to the Calculator in the future, resources permitting. To discuss additional measures and otherwise connect with professionals in the field of sustainable lodging, join the National Sustainable Lodging Network, an online social network and information clearinghouse to support individuals working on greening lodging.
NEWMOA is a non-profit, non-partisan interstate association made up of environmental agency directors from the hazardous waste, solid waste, waste site cleanup, pollution prevention, and underground storage tank programs in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
NEWMOA's mission is to develop, lead, and sustain an effective partnership of states that helps achieve a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment by exploring, developing, promoting, and implementing environmentally sound solutions for:
- Reducing materials use and preventing pollution and waste;
- Properly reusing and recycling discarded materials that have value;
- Safely managing solid and hazardous wastes; and
- Remediating contaminated sites.
The Green Lodging Calculator was funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) through the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx™). In-kind contributions were made by the NEWMOA member-states' green lodging programs through NEWMOA's Hospitality Workgroup, who provided input and direction into the development of the Calculator.