Marriott on the Move

June 5 marks a very important day to encourage environmental awareness - it's called World Environment Day. I've told you before about many of our global initiatives like our partnership with the Brazilian state of Amazonas and our efforts to reduce fuel and water consumption globally. While efforts like these are in place at our properties, many of our Marriott hotels around the world have taken it upon themselves to create their own local initiatives to help protect the environment. Let me share some of these fantastic efforts.

In the Middle East, where we just announced that we will be more than doubling our number of properties, the associates at the Amman Marriott hotel planted trees to establish the "Marriott Forest" on a piece of land provided by . . .

On this planet, we're all visitors, or guests. I prefer guests because that's what the people who visit our hotels are. I think we get it at Marriott. Green is certainly the new business imperative. Scientists have argued pretty convincingly how climate change is caused by the release of man-made greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and it's fueled by the burning of fossil fuels. Every one of us produces carbon in our daily lives. But fortunately, there's a lot we can do to minimize our carbon footprint and that's what . . .

I'm here at the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I'm surrounded by the flora and fauna of the rainforest, including a two-toed sloth and some poison arrow frogs.

I'm really excited, so let me jump right into it. Our company and the Brazilian state of Amazonas just signed an agreement to protect 1.4 million acres of endangered Amazon rainforest. We're committing $2 million. The money will fund an environmental management plan administered by the newly created Amazonas Sustainable Foundation. We've been told this is the first partnership of its kind between the public sector and a corporation to prevent deforestation, which we know results in global warming. We hope other companies will follow our lead.

By the end of the year, our guests . . .

A lot of my fellow corporate executives like to play golf. I have a set of clubs, but they're a little bit rusty and I've got to tell you, golf is a handicap for me. I've never been able to play the game well and that's always been a frustration. I'm sure some of you know how I feel.

Despite my frustrations, it was more than three decades ago our company recognized the growing popularity of golf. Today, our Marriott Golf division is perhaps the world's largest resort golf management company.

It started back in 1970 when we acquired the legendary . . .

I had a great Thanksgiving. I spent it at our Fairfield Farm, which has been our family farm for over 56 years. It's in Virginia, not too far from Front Royal. I have a lot of fond memories of this farm through the years, like going on hayrides with my kids and talking with my dad about politics. Of course I remember falling off the horses and watching my kids fall off the horses too. That was not the fun part. But the farm inspired the name of our Fairfield Inn hotel brand.

We launched Fairfield over 20 years ago and today have . . .

I've blogged quite a bit lately about what our hotels are doing to make Marriott a greener company. Earlier, I told you we are on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost one million cubic tons by 2010. But I believe that being green starts at home and our home is our headquarters just outside of Washington, D.C.

Our goal is to have zero net waste from our headquarters building in five years. To start, we've eliminated plastic utensils and Styrofoam . . .