The Resort at MarinaVillage is a proud member of the Florida Green Lodging Program!
The Florida Green Lodging Program was established in 2004 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) with its main objective being to recognize and reward environmentally conscientious lodging facilities in Florida. The DEP encourages the lodging industry to preserve and protect Florida’s natural resources. The Florida Green Lodging Program is unique in that it covers an all-inclusive list of environmental initiatives that are specific to the Florida environment.
The lodging industry is one of Florida’s largest commercial sectors. In 2005, according to research conducted by VISITFLORIDA®, 83.6 million people visited Florida with about 50 percent of those staying in a hotel, motel or bed & breakfast. With this many visitors, the lodging industry can have a significant and positive impact on Florida’s natural resources.
Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Green Lodging Program. Tallahassee, Florida.
Some of the components that help to make MarinaVillage a green resort include the following:
We have an energy management system in place for the hotel rooms. When a guest enters the room, they insert their key card into the slot next to the light switch at the entry. This activates the occupied mode and allows the air conditioning to reach cooler levels. In the units we also have sensors on the lanai sliding glass doors, these sensors will turn off the AC if the sliding glass doors are left open for more than 3 minutes. When the key is inserted into the slot, this also allows certain lighting to be turned on. When the key is removed as the guest leaves the room, the AC will adjust to an unoccupied setting and the temperature will be adjusted to a higher level and certain lighting, if left on, will be turned off.
In our commercial laundry we have installed an Ozone machine. The Ozone generator creates Ozone and this is connected to our laundry washers. The Ozone is used to whiten the linens and allow us to use very little hot water and fewer chemicals.
We have installed in various locations of the hotel, occupancy sensors that will turn on when a guest enters a restroom and will turn off the lighting if the restroom is not occupied.
Portions of the hotel are using 277 volt ballasts for lighting which are more efficient than 120.
We have utilized T8 fluorescent lighting throughout the hotel, which is more energy efficient than the older T12.
We have utilized compact fluorescent light bulbs in the units and common areas of the hotel, which are much more efficient and last much longer than incandescent lighting.
We have used some energy star appliances in the units.
Our sliding glass doors in the hotel rooms are utilize tinted glass to reduce the impact of the sun.
We have automatic faucets in the public restrooms.
We have low flow toilets in the restrooms.
We utilize photocells to turn on and off exterior lighting.
We have installed a trash compactor and we compact all the trash generated by the hotel, the Marker 92 restaurant as well as the all the trash from the two 2-story commercial lease buildings.
We have a recycling program set up for our guests and fill up at least fifteen to twenty 96 gallon recycling containers per week.
The hotel uses a closed loop chilled water system for cooling the hotel instead of independent condensing units.
The grounds were planted with mainly native species of plants and turf allowing us to minimize the amount of irrigation needed.
We have implemented a towel reuse program for the hotel rooms and advertise it to our guests by means of in room signage.
We perform our weekly fire pump test using the power transferred from the generator during the weekly generator test run.
The Marker 92 restaurant utilizes recyclable to go containers.
The cooling of the walk in freezers and coolers is engineered with scroll compressors and is attached to our chilled water system instead of having independent condensing units.
We have a fluorescent bulb recycling program to eliminate these chemicals from reaching a landfill.
We utilize environmentally friendly cleaning solutions and refillable containers for the housekeeping staff.