You are surrounded by green. More than just the White River National Forest, we are working to protect our environment too. We use eco friendly laundry methods, participate in local Actively Green Program and encourage guests to re-use their towels. Also, please recycle at the dumpsters near Buildings 4, 7, 12, E and M (mixed glass, plastic and aluminum).

Thank you!

The Vail Racquet Club is a proud participant in the Actively Green Sustainable Business Certification here in the Vail Valley.

Goals:

• Fully comply with environmental legislation and approved codes of practice
• Continuously seek to improve our environmental performance.
• Reduce the pollution, emissions and waste while increasing the resort’s recycling ethos.
• Ensure the efficient use of energy, water and other resources encouraging an ‘environmentally responsible’ attitude
• Promote awareness and educate employees on environmental issues and sustainable working practices
• Expect similar environmental standards and practices from suppliers and contractors encouraging sustainability throughout our supply chain
• Develop and increase responsible purchasing methods to include sourcing products, such as locally produced goods and using suppliers that maintain ethical practices.
• Assist customers to use products and services in an environmentally friendly way
• Support the communities in which we operate and engage in sustainability initiatives
• Align ourselves with the Actively Green 2015 Program and Considerate Hoteliers as an indicator of our environmental commitment and focus

Some of the measures we will be implementing to enable us to be more environmentally friendly are as follows:

Green Team

We have recently appointed a Green Team Leader to direct our Green Team which is made up of General Manager, Treasurer and Head of Maintenance. They will meet once a month to ensure a targeted focus on environmental issues and encourage the generation of ideas and implementation of appropriate measures.

Energy

We are aware of the need to improve energy efficiency and do actively identify and implement measures to reduce our energy consumption and costs to the resort. Some of the initiatives that have been taken or have been identified by our Green Team to be implemented in the immediate future include:

• The installation of low energy lighting throughout the property
• Regular boiler efficiency audits
• Lights, heating and air conditioning in the club’s conference rooms and offices are switched off when the rooms are not in use
• Covering pools and hot tubs when not in use
• In periods of low occupancy, appropriate units within the resort are isolated so heating can be turned off and lighting reduced to emergency levels only
• The installation of energy saving appliances which includes electric convection ovens, new low energy dishwashing machines and more ecologically friendly refrigerators.

Water

Water is a scarce resource which has a direct impact on our natural environment and therefore its management is essential. We have implemented water conservation measures to reduce consumption and costs. Some of these measures are:

• Providing water saving devices in toilets, and toilet cisterns with smaller water capacity in addition to having restrictors for taps and showers
• We have installed drinking water filtration units around the staff areas of the club
• Maintain pool and hot tubs to reduce the need to flush and refill

Waste

We have looked at ways to reduce, reuse and recycle the types and quantity of waste produced by the resort, ensuring it is disposed of correctly and also considering alternative ways of dealing with waste. This included glass, cooking oil, paper, cardboard, and ink cartridges.

We have targeted ourselves on reducing the proportion of waste that goes to landfill and increasing recycling levels year to year

We have eliminated the need to segregate waste streams by implementing a single stream recycling center; ensuring that glass, cardboard and paper are all recycled easily.

Through the installation of Visual One software and the automation of processes, we have been able to move to ‘paperless’ offices in our back office functions such as Accounts, Reservations and the Front Desk resulting in the reduction of paper usage by over 80%.

Transport and responsible purchasing

We do implement ideas and take action to reduce the environmental impact of the resort caused through travel, whether through deliveries or purchasing more locally sourced and ethically sound products.

Specifically:

We demonstrate our commitment to sustainability and the use of multi-certification in some areas such as Fair Trade clothing lines, and locally produced Tea and coffee.

Pollution

We consider practical measures to help us reduce pollution of the environment through the resort’s activities. This entails us ensuring:

• Work to source chemicals that are biodegradable and environmentally friendly
• Install energy efficient lighting fixtures
• Work to improve riparian zones to prevent runoff
• We screen our suppliers to ensure they share our environmental ethos.

Communicating our commitment

Sharing the message on sustainability to guests and staff is important in engaging people in this cause. Our front desk makes a point of relaying our environmental sustainability commitment to our guests while promoting the free public transportation the Town of Vail offers in the form of highly convenient buses at no charge. We also encourage our guests to engage in the sustainability discussion by asking for their views on our Comments and Feedback Forms regarding ideas on what we could do better for the environment.

Social Responsibility and Charity Support

We appreciate the importance of making a positive difference in the communities in which we work, live and interact with. In this regard, we do work in supporting a number of charities and sustainable events.

The Vail Racquet Club has progressively strengthened its environmental actions over the past few years and continually works to minimize the adverse environmental impacts of its operations by involving guests and suppliers in its eco-awareness.

This is our environmental path to date and we are moving toward improvement in our Environmental Sustainability Action Plan.