Greening Your Restaurant
Tips from Mike Collins, Manager of McCormick & Schmick's
(Also applicable to your own kitchen at home!)

Easy

• Don't thaw food under cold, running water. Utilize fresh products, or a pull-thaw system.
• Only run full racks of dishes.
• Create a power up/power down schedule. Power down equipment between meal periods.
• Keep all equipment clean. The more residue, the harder grills and fryers have to work.
• Get on a preventative maintenance program. This will increase the efficiency and life of all major equipment.
• Turn off lights that are not needed.
• Recycle
• Buy your cleaning products in bulk, reducing the number of containers needed.
• Purchase 10% of your energy through the EPA Green Power Partnership.

Medium

• Install low flow sprayers on loading side of dish machine.
• Keep coils and door seals on ice machine clean.
• Install lower wattage bulbs, i.e., compact fluorescents.
• Buy only cleaning products with the Green Seal (www.greanseal.org).
• Buy local produce.

Harder (but not impossible)

• Install 1.6 gallon flush toilets.
• Install sunlight reflective coatings on windows.
• Collect kitchen and table scraps for composting.
• Make sure your HVAC is checking to make sure you have a positive air balance.

Loews Corporate Policy on Greening

Loews Hotels is committed to being environmentally responsible and is making steady, measured progress in their efforts. They seek every reasonable opportunity to incorporate Green standards and practices into all aspects of their business. Loews' philosophy is to identify and mandate specific brand-wide practices that embrace Green responsibility and to make prudent investments in technologies and programs that will allow them to do good and do well at the same time. Watch this page for more on what Loews is doing -- coming soon.

The Green team at the Annapolis Marriott continues to work on environmentally friendly initiatives. It is important to our hotel to be conscious of the environment and to involve our guests in the process. Changes have been made to our day to day operations to reduce negative impacts on the environment.

Many of the changes have been made in the operation of the hotel in order to become a sustainable business. Changes have been made in the everyday routine, such as two sided printing to reduce paper usage. Recycled paper is purchased for office use and email is a major form of communication among the staff to reduce paper waste. Guests are encouraged to drop off their used newspapers at the front desk for us to recycle for them.

Motion sensors have been installed in linen closets. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) have replaced ordinary light bulbs in hallways, bathrooms, and guestrooms. Also, low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators have been installed in bathrooms to reduce water consumption. In addition, guests are invited to join the linens and towel reuse programs while staying at the hotel to help reduce water and energy consumption.

Improvement of the indoor air quality is also a focus of the “green” team at the Annapolis Marriott. Improvements are done through the introduction of PURE rooms offering excellent air quality in guestrooms for people with allergies. The Annapolis Marriott is also a smoke-free hotel. Air filters are changed regularly as part of our preventative maintenance program.

Laundry products have been chosen to be more environmentally friendly. Paper, cardboard, glass, and plastic materials are recycled daily. And coreless tissue paper is used in public restrooms reducing waste.

Recycling has expanded to include the banquet events. Hundreds and hundreds of bottles and cans are recycled after our weekend events and the weekday conferences and meetings. We have always recycled used batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, and other dangerous items that can leech into the Bay from landfills since the program was initially implemented.

After we lost our renown bell captain and favorite personality, Roosevelt Sterling, we purchased and had planted 50 trees through the Arbor Day Foundation to be planted in the Huron-Manistee National Forest in his honor.

These are some examples of what the Annapolis Marriott implements with its green efforts to become a more sustainable business practice. Sustainability is becoming a part of everyone’s daily lives and is becoming more important for corporations to work with other corporations with the same goals. Our goal is to do our part to protect our environment and still provide exemplary service and a beautiful product. Going green is an ongoing process and more initiatives and best practices will be introduced for further improvements in the hotel operations.

The O’Callaghan Annapolis Hotel constantly strives to put in place policies and procedures to lessen our impact on the environment and the Chesapeake Bay. We encourage our clients to help us in this effort by reducing linen, water and power usage, recycling all glass, plastic and paper and we endeavor to work with as many local and environmentally conscious suppliers as possible. In an ongoing effort we are constantly examining new ways we can help the environment.

The Ways that The Purple Tooth Wine Bar is AGAP (As Green as Possible):

• We used all sustainable farmed or reclaimed wood during construction
• The cork floors in lounge have a low environmental impact because cork regenerates naturally – no need to kill trees
• We refill water bottles reduces waste
• We recycle 90% of our waste
• We throw away only one trash bag full of non-recycleable materials per day
• Our concrete bar top aggregate is made from recycled glass and fly ash
• We made the tables, bar, standing bar, point of sale counter, wine racks and shelves ourselves using reclaimed materials
• We offer and serve organically grown, sustainable, and biodynamic food and wine
• We hand stripped the materials from the floor revealing the original firehouse concrete surface. Instead of adding more materials to the concrete, we simply sealed it with a low VOC finish.
• We used low-VOC paints and finishes during renovation
• We re-use our cardboard boxes for things like our grilled cheese menus
• Chalkboards are used throughout reducing paper waste
• The paper we do use for our menus are made with 100% recycled content
• We do not support flyer posts reducing paper waste
• Our toilets are low flow and dual flush, reducing water waste.
• Our bathroom sink faucets are automatic causing very little water usage.
• We use CFL light bulbs in many places throughout the wine bar
• We clean our dishes by hand using the “three sink” method.  Much better water savings than dishwashing machines running constantly
• We recycle our corks through the Annapolis Cork Recycling Program
• All of our employees are solar powered – they begin to fade at 10pm during the week and midnight on the weekends
  

The Boatyard Bar & Grill Has recycled all paper, bottles and cans since opening in 2001.

It is a member of One Percent for the Planet, an alliance of businesses that pledge at lease one percent of annual sales to environmental organizations worldwide. Founded by Patagonia, Inc., founder and owner, Yvon Chouinard, it now has over 500 members including singer/song writer Jack Johnson.

The Boatyard holds the annual Bands In The Sand event to benefit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that has raised over $100,000 for CBF for each of the past two years

The Boatyard holds an Annual Spring Rockfish Tournament at which 700-800 fishermen each year raise money for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Coastal Conservation Association, Maryland. The Boatyard Innovated this tournament to be "catch and release" only. Now its seventh year, this event has raised in excess of $125,000 for these causes.

• Ahh, Coffee! buys its coffee from Chesapeake Roasting, a company that gives back a portion of its profits to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
• Converted from foam plates to glass and recycled paper plates for food service and plastic hot cup lids are now by request only
• Offers insulated coffee cup sleeves that are made of recycled paper
• Offers a 5% discount to those who bring in their own coffee mugs, thus lessening the impact on local landfills
  

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