Going green while traveling around West Michigan
TerraCycle Include USA ZWB
Your efforts to help the planet don’t have to take a vacation just because you are traveling. Many West Michigan destinations, businesses, and organizations are making sure to do their part to promote eco-friendly and sustainable practices to conserve energy and minimize environmental impact.
Eco-friendly lodging
Crystal Mountain’s village in Thompsonville has been built iteratively, piece-by-piece, over time and the same approach has been applied to make meaningful strides toward a more sustainable future, such as:- Designing the resort as a pedestrian- and bike-friendly village, reducing use of carbon-emitting transportation
- First resort in Michigan to invest in wind energy credits, offsetting the carbon footprint of the Crystal Clipper high-speed quad chairlift to help supply the grid with more clean, renewable energy sources—reducing CO2 emissions by 174,000 pounds annually
- Building the first LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) spa in the Midwest—one of only four in the nation in 2009—that uses 28% less energy than a baseline structure
- First northern Michigan resort to provide complimentary electric vehicle charging stations
- Including a closed-loop, geothermal heating and cooling system as part of a $12 million expansion to the Inn at the Mountain (2018), reducing CO2 emissions by 150,000 pounds per year
- Setting aside a 30-acre wooded preserve leased to Michigan Legacy Art Park for $1 per year
- LED lighting in accommodations and public spaces, including the resort’s 33,000 square-foot conference facility
- In-room recycling, electric golf carts, re-fillable bath amenities, efficiency sensors for irrigation and snow-making and more
- Partnership with TerraCycle, to recycle partially used and empty toiletry bottles. TerraCycle provides the Resort with a penny for each bottle, saved up to donate to local green nonprofits.
- Partnership with Eminence Organics, which plants a tree for each product sold. To date, over 3,500 trees have been planted.
- A composting program with Bay Area Recycling for Charities that directs roughly 100 tons of food waste from the Resort’s dining outlets away from landfills.
- In 2016, the Resort replaced an aging boiler with a Micro CHP (Combined Heat and Power) unit with an engine that runs on natural gas to generate electricity with useful heat—clean hot water—as a by-product of cooling the engine. The Micro CHP is estimated to save up to $20,000 in electric energy each year, and received an EPA certificate of approval for commercial emission standards.
- The Golf & Grounds team has won numerous awards for their eco-friendly approach; resort is certified as a Michigan Turf-grass Environmental Steward; is adding space to the no-mow natural zones on the 900-acre property.
- The Resort is eliminating single-use plastic products from the property—a work in progress.