 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Hi. Welcome to Code Green on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Rachel James. I'm actually filling in for Howard Wiig this afternoon. So you'll notice a little bit of a different face, but hopefully a similar pace to what you're used to. Today, we'll be speaking with Ernest Nishizaki from Acumen Advisor on our show today, Greening the Tourism Industry. Ernie, welcome. Thank you very much, Rachel. Great to be here with you. I'm glad to have you. I was really excited actually when Howard asked me to fill in and I thought, ooh, I've got so many questions. Great. But before I launch into questions, would you mind just sharing a little bit about yourself? Sure. I've been in the hospitality business for 42 years and retired about four years ago. But during that time while I was in industry, I started to get really concerned about energy and really that's how I got involved in this area. I'm not an expert in energy, but I certainly understand the need to start to green our industry. Excellent. And so I do have a question. When you say green your industry, I hear green. And some people say things like greenwashing and lots of people want to nitpick what green means. So could I ask you what you mean when you say green the industry? I think what we want to be is much better for the environment, to do better for the environment. Obviously electricity, that's one of the things we need to cut down on. The other would be our fossil fuel usage to transport people to and from different destinations to Hawaii, as well as obviously from our airports to the hotel. And I think the other one is just absolutely using products that are good for the environment. For example, getting rid of plastic straws that's been sort of in the media lately. And I think one other point that we started to do is to support our agriculture business. Instead of bringing things in from the mainland, which obviously takes transportation, costs and fuel, to use more local products, which provides a green, more green environment, as well as obviously the visitors coming to Hawaii, they would prefer to have a Camoela tomato than perhaps a tomato from the mainland. Yes, I would also prefer a Camoela tomato, and I live here. I appreciate that explanation. Thank you. So it sounds like green is pretty all around from electricity to transportation, as well as agricultural products from locally based farms. Definitely. There's just so many aspects. For example, years ago, you might remember going to restaurants and they were saying, if you want a glass of water, it's on request. Again, that reduces the cost to clean the glass, as well as saves water when so many people perhaps don't even consume their water. Other things today in hotels, you'll notice hotels saying, if you prefer not to have your towels changed, put it back in the rack, don't change the sheets every day. I think it's only in hotels that you change the sheets every day. We probably don't do it, but maybe once or twice a week. Yes, sure enough. I think in our homes, we probably have a little less traffic on our beds as well. Absolutely. So I hear you launch into a few things that hotels have done. Do you mind sharing some of the things that have happened here at Hawaii hotels that have greened in the last few years? While I was still working in hotels, there are so many things that we're doing to reduce our KW usage. For example, on the technical side, putting variable speed pumps which obviously reduces energy, using heat recovery systems to reduce the amount of energy we need to heat water. But all of these things were working and working well, and I must say that many of our hotels here in Hawaii have done a great job in reducing the KWs. Unfortunately, with the price of oil going up, the bills have continued to climb. So we really need to start to do more things to reduce our use of electricity and start to move into areas where we can be more efficient. Excellent. That's a good trend to start, I think. So when we chatted a bit before we started, do you mention how some of the hotels in Hawaii have some LEED standards that they've achieved? Certification, I believe, actually. Do you mind going through some of the things, some of those hotels, for one, and then also some of the things that were included in that certification? The LEED certification is a lengthy process for any existing building. And I would imagine, I think it took about six years to get LEED certification for the properties that I was associated with. And the QAO properties today that are LEED certified include the Royal Hawaiian and the Sheraton Waikiki, which are both LEED goal, which is quite outstanding for not a new building, but a building that's being converted. And also the Muwan Hotel, which is over a hundred years old, got its LEED certification. It was a lengthy process of not just looking at the technical or mechanical things, but training our employees and making them more aware of what they needed to do. Excellent. And so as we talked a little bit before also, in addition to training employees, there's an element of, I would say informing as opposed to training our visitors, but how do we get things like, I mean, letting visitors know that some of these establishments are actually LEED certified and gold even, and what that means for them as a traveler? Well, I think the marketing people need to get that word out to people because more and more people today are looking for greener type properties and greener products. I mean, if you go to Costco today, you see things with the green label organic, but also the green side of it is more visitors are coming to Hawaii, but before they come here are looking at hotels to say, how green are you? So it's small yet, but it's starting. In terms of awareness, I think that's something which the industry still can do a better job of. I'm not too sure that guests are fully aware of what their energy consumption is and how they can be a part of it to reduce their consumption. The average visitor uses two times more electricity than our residents here. Why? Air conditioning and all the various other things. So we need to make them aware of their role of how they can help reduce our consumption of electricity and other energy. Yeah. It's interesting that you mentioned the awareness of travelers because we talked a little bit about this just in traveling in Japan and I've heard other places as well that they do the card in the, like it's near the door in a slot that kind of turns on all the electricity in the room, but I remember even seeing that and there wasn't necessarily an additional informational that like I was reducing my energy consumption by not having things running that didn't need to be. So I like that element of information as well as action. Those are real interesting devices to reduce some air conditioning, electricity costs, but I think the future is there's more and more things like sensors that are in rooms. So when a guest actually leaves the room, the sensors can kick off the air conditioning to turn off the lights. In the future, I think using your iPhones, you'll be able to program when you want to come back to the room and say you're coming back at five o'clock after being at the beach. Perhaps you program it so your air conditioning goes on at four o'clock so your room is cool. Thus not leaving air conditioning all day. So there are things that are going to happen, but I do think we need to just continue to develop ways that we can advise people about how they can be a part of the process of reducing their energy consumption. And in the work that you do now, so I understand you sit on a few boards and even though you're retired, it sounds like you're filling your time with a lot of other interests it seems. Yeah. I guess do you do informational type of educational efforts in that work? I've been very fortunate to be part of the Blue Planet Foundation Board and over the last several years, Blue Planet Foundation has gone out and done its role in building awareness of the community. And I think where I come into play is helping Blue Planet tie ourselves to the industry so that the industries start to get more awareness and become more aware of what they also can do. So it's a growing thing. It's not going to be done overnight, but it's a process, but we'll get there. Certainly. No, and I'm glad you mentioned Blue Planet. It's been interesting at the, I think at the Verge Conference this summer, they announced their We Are 100, I think it's called We Are 100, but where they're interviewing different people as well as entities who have undertaken green or renewable energy focused efforts, so they capture what was done in the past as well as make a pledge to what they'll do in the future. And my understanding is as a part of that, as a part of their story, that Blue Planet will follow them kind of through the implementation to see how the outcome is. Yeah, the program I think it's called 100 for 100, which is 100 people, 100%. And it's something where I think what we're going to end up having to do is work with a lot of younger people who perhaps are more conscious of how the energy and sustainability issues. So I think it's a great program. I think you'll find a lot of good stories about people who are doing their part. Each one of us can do our part in reducing our energy consumption. Yes, it was really interesting. I remember seeing one of the clips that they showed us for Ed Kenney, and I don't remember if it was at a specific restaurant, but he was going to, well, his goal is to cook with hydrogen. Right. And so just when you're mentioning reaching out to industry and doing education, obviously for students and children and kind of your average joke, but also reaching out to industry to see what they can do. And I've been surprised at the creativity there. I think there's so many, so much opportunities. For example, on Shark Tank several years ago, there was a company called CropSticks, and they're starting to use bamboo chopsticks and recycling bamboo chopsticks. And I never realized this, but I think the number was like two million wood trees get cut down a year to make wooden chopsticks. And then we threw them away. Whereas the CropSticks from bamboo can be recycled and made into flooring. So I think these are things that our young people are starting to come up with and starting to help us get to or get our goal and reduce our waste of products. Definitely. And so you had mentioned also in the industry the plastic straw craze. I was driving in my car the other day and listening to an HPR story. It was re-airing from NPR, but they were sharing that part of the plastic straw ban and just people really latching onto it has been because it's kind of a low-hanging fruit. And then really bringing awareness to how many straws we use daily. And I just think of my daughter being younger and like drinking caprisans. And I realized that those were single use containers. I'm like, gosh, between those straws and then straws when you go to the restaurant and just throughout the day myself, who I figure is relatively conscious of my consumption, I use a lot of straws. The hotel industry, many of the major operators, the Marriots, the Starwoods, Hildens, are committed to reducing their carbon footprint. But there's so much more opportunities for them. I no longer work in any specific hotel. So I'll just tell you, think about this. When you go to a hotel today, they have normally one or two bottles of bottled water in a plastic bottle room. Here in Hawaii, all that plastic has to be shipped back to the mainland. I mean, why not start to do water stations in the lobby and allowing people to use their own personal flask or give them a flask with advertising and use water from there? You go into the typical hotel room and you come back after day and take a shower. And they give you these tiny plastic bottles of shampoo and just, that's plastic. We've got to stop using plastic. Yeah. I recently heard that some hotels are just changing it to, and I know it's not the same thing that you get your soap out of when you wash your hands, but a similar style, like just a container that's filled in a bulk sense as opposed to the small shampoo containers. But I hadn't even thought, I mean, things like that, I just don't really realize how much they're really using each day. It must have been back several years ago, many, many years ago when I was working at a resort, Sheridan Resort on the neighbor island, and I actually put those receptacles at the wall of the shampoo in and in the conditioner. And unfortunately, the brand people, the brand standards people for Sheridan didn't like that, so I had to go back to small ones. But those are things that I think that as we move forward, as companies get more committed to sustainability, they will start to move toward that type of thing. That's an exciting prospect. So we'll take a break here for a minute, and when we come back, we'll hear more from Ernest Nitsizaki about how we can be more involved in the progression toward greening our industry, and visitor industry in Hawaii. Thank you so much. We'll see you in a bit. I have a lot of potential to be seriously cool, and I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships, and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at 1. See you there. There was a new woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread, and kissed them all soundly, and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. Aloha, and thank you for staying with us here on Code Green on Think Tech Hawaii. Today, we've been speaking with Ernest Nitsizaki, and we've been talking all about the visitor industry and how it's been greening, and how it can become more green. Thank you again for joining us, Ernie. Thank you. So we left off with our audience, sharing a little bit about what you can see forward in the industry. So we talked a little bit about what, I want to say what little small bottles can turn into if we decide to get rid of those shampoo bottles. But over the break, you also talked about something pretty revolutionary. Would you mind sharing that with our audience? Sure. I think before we get into that, let me just say about what hotels need to do. And I think there's three things that need to happen in hotels. One is they need to implement things that save energy today and reduce our carbon footprint. So implementation. The other is what we talked about is awareness, building awareness of our associates, our employees that work there, how they can be a part of it, but increasing that awareness to our guests also so that perhaps there's the kiosk that shows what the consumption of energy is currently in the hotel. And then finally, the last one, innovation, I think. I think as time goes on, there'll be new methods, new systems that will reduce the energy consumption. So really three things, implementation, awareness, and innovation, I think are going to be three areas of importance. During the break, we're talking about deep-sea water air conditioning. And there is a group that's working on a project in Waikiki and hopefully this will happen. Just some numbers here. If they were able to get about 20,000 hotel rooms to commit, Waikiki has about 30,000, they would be a reduction of need for 110,000 barrels of oil. Obviously the emissions are going to be reduced. I think equally important will be 375 million gallons of good portable water that currently is going through the cooling towers would be saved. And obviously they'll be a corresponding saving in the amount of water that goes through the switch system. So this is an important project. I do hope that it happens. It may not happen in my lifetime, but when it does, I think it's going to make a significant change in the energy consumption of our hotels. That's pretty remarkable. I mean, I'd heard of the project here downtown, but hadn't realized that the hotels were considering that. I did hear, and this is just me talking from overhearing something, but that the hotels were looking at CHP and were looking into becoming not necessarily microgrids, but in being self-sustaining from an energy perspective. Hotels are going into CHP. In fact, before I left, I was involved in considering one. And some of the hotels are going to go into CHP, which makes sense in the short term. Because it does. It makes them a little more use their heat recovery systems, their conditioning systems, and using natural gas or liquid natural gas to give them power for the hotels. But that's a short term thing. Because ultimately at the end of the day, what we need to do is get off of even LNG, because, again, it is still fossil fuel. But I think the hotels need to do that now. It does reduce their costs. It does give them a little more sustainability. And it starts them thinking about other systems. Right. So how much of the visitor interaction encourages hotels to perform a certain way? So in the context of plastic straws, that seems to just become this craze. And I have a 11-year-old in her school advocated for a local restaurant to ban straws or to stop using them. They were successful. But I'm curious, is that similar in the visitor industry if collectives of guests decide they want to see something or they want to see less of something? How much influence does that have? I think the hotels understand what they can do. But it's a question of who's going to be first. Because let's face it, if you took shampoos out of the room first, you may not be like, so I do think it's going to take some courage on part of one of the hotel operators to start to move in that. I don't know who started to plastic straws, but whoever started that and all the hotels will follow. There's no question they'll follow. It's just the competitive thing is you don't have straws or you don't start watering your table. Somebody's going to be leader. Yes, yes. I like hearing about new leaders. Oh, it seemed like you were going to start. No, no, no. Well, what I was going to say was I think while the brands are independently making their own decisions, I think we here in Hawaii, I'm hoping that the hotels here in Hawaii collectively because we are on an island state where 2,500 miles away from everything, we need to have our hotels collectively work together and see if they can make some change themselves. I like to hear that. Are there currently collectives of hotels that work on other items that aren't necessarily specific to renewable energy or greening the industry? I think there's a group, the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, as well as the Hawaii Engineers Association, along with Blue Planet, and we're working on some projects to see how we can work together to make better strides in reducing our carbon footprint. OK. So what are some of the concerns of the hotel industry? So as ideas about greening their industry come to light, what are some of the concerns about moving in that direction? Whatever systems that come up, we need to make sure that they're reliable in the sense that, obviously, the customer wants their conditioning. And so we're going to have to have systems that are proven, that can make sure that the services and the quality of the services and the facilities are maintained. I think that's one. The other stomach block probably will be capital. I mean, if a project is going to take, say batteries, if you have to put batteries in, those expensive right now. So capital requirements are going to have. And I think, finally, sometimes I think we need to work together and government needs to understand that we need their help sometimes in making these changes. Definitely. So in honoring Howard as best I can, I feel like I have to ask a code question. And I certainly don't know the details of codes, but I'm curious if you could think of code incentives that would encourage both the government to be involved and aware of what the industry may need that incentivize the industry to move toward greening. Howard and I have known each other for many, many years, and we've talked about different codes, electrical codes, hotels. We talked about earlier, sensors. I think in renovation projects, perhaps hotels can, but sensors live in rooms so that when people live out of the room, all of the electric usage is cut off. At the same time, I think what you need to have is the guests will want the capability to use their iPhones to set it so that when they come back, they're in a comfortable environment. Other codes, currently, hotels have a requirement to have one parking stall for every four hotel guest rooms. Perhaps in the future, if hotels started to improve their, reduce their carbon footprint, maybe the cities could start to consider that we could change that to one to five, which would then bring back those empty stalls and perhaps that space could be utilized for other functions that could be revenue producing. I do believe in incentives. I am not in favor of disincentives of penalties. I'm glad that you mentioned bringing in other industries. I think especially with the parking, well, parking in general in Hawaii is tough. Downtown is even tougher. And then, with car sharing being a part of the Hawaii equation now, so a new company, Car Share Huey, with Toyota Serve Co. is opening. And I know that their entire fleet is not necessarily clean vehicles, but we're an entity to come here that was a complete clean fuel car sharing fleet. And that seems like something that could marry well with the tourism industry. Absolutely. For example, if a hotel were willing to get a company to put in a fleet of electric vehicles at their hotels for rental on an hourly or half a day basis on a shorter term basis, that will reduce the number of visitors who are driving in from the airport on their gas-fueled cars. It also allows hotels to maximize their parking spaces because people aren't always out there. So I do think there's an opportunity for Car Share, the beaky system, the bikes. I think in the future, you'll see more and more of our visitors using bikes to travel around the shorter distances. So there is an opportunity to use that. It is important that we not just focus on electricity because frankly, the cars actually equal amount of costs if you lift out more. Now transportation, I mean, just getting from the airport, most of the shuttles that are coming here aren't necessarily shuttles that are clean shuttles. I was traveling in Los Angeles recently and one of the things I noted is that each of the shuttles that came in, they had this lots of signage that was indicating that they were clean vehicles. So some were CNG, some were full electric. There was a couple of hybrids, but they were pretty specific about how they were clean shuttling people around the city. I'm an optimistic guy. When the rail is completed and it stops at Alamona, one would hope that we have an electric shuttle from Alamona to Waikiki. So guests can take the rail to Alamona, get off there and move on to a electric shuttle that goes through Waikiki through all the hotels. That would reduce tremendously. So hopefully that happens someday. I like this optimism. Could I ask then what your visitor paradise or your visitor utopia would be for Hawaii? Well, I think, you know, the question also comes up is that when is tourism, when is enough tourists enough? You know, last year we had over a record year over nine million visitors. I think what we have to do is make sure that there is a respect on the part of our visitors when they come here to respect what we have here, respect not just the land and the resources, but the people. In turn, I think our people here need to understand that these people who come here want to experience the culture here. So it's our role as residents to retain that culture, retain that special spirit of sharing and caring that we are so good at. But I also think that we in Hawaii, while we say visitors occupy too much of our beaches, we have to understand that there is a significant economic benefit to having tourists here. So can we, are we willing to give all that up and the same for a million less tourists? I'm not sure we are. Do we have a max carrying capacity for tourists? Like if we hit X number, will the island sink? I don't think the island will sink, but I do think that what we need to look at is what is the carrying capacity of our resources, our electricity, for example, and the various transportation. But I think as we get better and better at that, we will be able to handle the visitors who come here. I also, by the way, feel that what we should start to do is look at increasing the heights of hotels. Why not go higher? Reduce urban sprawl, let's not keep going out. Let's just go higher. If a hotel today is 31 stories, if it's another 10 stories, I don't think it's gonna matter to us when we walk on the ground, but that'll bring more visitors and the capacity can increase. Now granted, we still need to make sure that our water sewer system can handle that. That's exactly what I was thinking of just because hearing in the Kakaoka development, so much of the conversation was about whether the sewer system could handle that increase. And honestly, if we go up 10 stories, it may be only nine, because the first, if we have global warming and the, the first one may be on the water. So that won't count anymore. Ever the optimist, Ernie. Yeah. That's great. I'd like to give you the opportunity to share. If there's an answer that I haven't asked the question for, something that you'd like to make sure our audience hears. No, I think you've asked a lot. I just want you to know and the audience to know that all of us can do our part in reducing our energy consumption. And I think what we just need to do is continue to do things that implement, whether it be at home, we need to do a builder awareness of the people who live around us, even ourself self-awareness. And then finally to look at the new innovations and start to innovate and start to become more creative in how we use things. Outstanding. Thank you. Ernie, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I appreciate you suffering through, even though I wasn't Howard. Thanks for entertaining my idea. It was great to be with you today, Rachel. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you, audience, for sharing your afternoon with us here on Code Green. And remember, Ernie's three pieces. Could you share once more? Implement. Implement. Make awareness. Make awareness. And innovation. And innovation. And there you have it, on the way to a green visitor industry in Hawaii. Thank you so much for joining us here on Think Tech Hawaii, Aloha.