"Green has become the new gold," says Rich Grant, spokesman for Denver's visitors bureau.
Earlier this week, his department debuted a travel carbon calculator on its home page. According to a logarithm that takes into account modes of transportation, distances traveled and length of stay, visitors can view their personal carbon footprint and offset their carbon cost with a donation to the Colorado Carbon Fund.
Grant says for Denver "this is an opportunity to have a meeting that is historically important and to show what can be done to reduce your carbon footprint and your water usage at a major meeting,"
Area hotels are also turning shades of green, one 3-inch plastic card at a time. This week, a Colorado-based commercial card producer donated 70,000 wooden key cards to replace their plastic counterparts.
While the biodegradable cards have been a European staple for the last decade, the Democratic convention marks their U.S. debut. Sustainable Cards, which manufactured the eco-friendly hotel keys, estimates that each year the American hospitality industry contributes 1,300 tons of plastic waste from key cards alone, the visual equivalent of eight 777 airplanes.
Greg Hartman, the company's president and CEO, said, "Our mission is to reduce nonbiodegradable waste to zero during the convention and throughout the year by encouraging the use of our eco-friendly wood cards in every hotel in America."
A bicycle fleet, sponsored by health care firm Humana and bicycle advocacy group Bikes Belong, is also using 2008's political greening to take to the streets at both the Democratic and Republican conventions.
Nate Kvamme, a director of consumer experience for Humana, says, "Both cities and both committees ... really identified the value" of implementing the bike program during the conventions.
Alongside reducing carbon emissions by providing an alternative to driving, Kvamme says the 1,000 bikes, which will be available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with various pickup and drop-off points throughout each convention site, are "an incredible solution to transit".
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