US: Populus, the United States’ first “carbon positive” hotel is opening tomorrow.
The hotel has been developed by Urban Villages, a real estate developer and environmental steward and will be managed by Aparium Hotel Group.
Urban Villages defines carbon positive as “a commitment to sequester more carbon in biomass and soil than the combined embodied and operational footprints of the building throughout its entire lifecycle.”
You can read our Focus on Embodied Carbon here.
The hotel, which is in downtown Denver, has secured 7,000 tonnes of certified carbon credits (7,000 mTC02e) as a part of its sustainability strategy.
The certified carbon credits serve to offset the property’s embodied carbon footprint, equating to 6,675 mTCO2e*, making Populus the first carbon positive hotel in the country.
Populus worked with partner organisations, Grassroots Carbon, OneTreePlanted, and Terrapass, to acquire a mix of high integrity, certified forest and soil carbon credits from US-based projects.
These projects included protecting habitat and watersheds, promoting soil and forest health, drought tolerance, resiliency, and biodiversity across a variety of coastal and inland ecosystems.
A LEED Gold Certified building, Populus has also committed to 100 per cent renewable electricity through Xcel Energy, which provides the hotel with Renewable Energy Certificates equivalent to 100 per cent renewable electricity from Colorado wind farms.
Populus will be the first hotel in downtown Denver to use unique “Food Cycling” technology from BioGreen360, which diverts 100 per cent of food waste away from landfills and into all-natural compost. It also generates real-time data to track and report the total amount of food diversion.
All food waste will be inserted into BioGreen360’s waterless, continual feed aerobic digesting system to repurpose waste into compost and fertiliser products that will then be distributed to local farms in Colorado.
Jon Buerge, president of Urban Villages said: “When we broke ground on Populus in 2022, we wanted to remain transparent about our environmentally progressive approach, knowing it would be an imperfect and evolving journey to achieve and maintain carbon positivity.”
“In advance of Populus’ opening, we have acquired enough certified carbon credits to offset and supersede the hotel’s embodied carbon footprint.”
Populus will feature 265 guest rooms and has striking aspen tree-inspired architecture by AD100 Studio Gang.
Populus’ embodied carbon – the carbon emitted during the creation, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of the materials used to build the hotel – has already been reduced through a combination of sustainable design and construction techniques and is being offset through the certified carbon credits.
The hotel is further offsetting its carbon footprint through a tree planting and reforestation effort, in partnership with the US Forest Service and other agencies.
Populus has been transparent about the success of this and although 70,000 trees were planted in 2022, the saplings have since struggled with a rough drought period, which is not atypical in natural environments but lead to a higher mortality rate than expected.
The US Forest Service has determined it is still too early in the project’s process to implement specific mitigation, and it will continue to assess and manage the planting as necessary as part of its Reforestation Strategy, which spans across many years.
Buerge explained: “We have always understood that reforestation poses risks as nature is a living system, but we planned accordingly by partnering with organisations including OneTreePlanted vis-à-vis the US Forest Service so that setbacks are managed and mitigated as a part of its Reforestation Strategy to grow and nurture resilient forests.
“We remain committed to nature-based solutions and are further investing in initiatives like reforestation, even when faced with obstacles, because we believe they are the most effective way to achieve our long-term mission to sequester more carbon than we emit over the life of Populus while also positively impacting the health and viability of the natural ecosystems that make Colorado a wonderful place to embrace and celebrate the great outdoors.”
Coinciding with the hotel’s opening on October 15th, Populus will plant one tree for every night’s stay, representing up to 20,000 newly planted trees in 2024.
Image: Nephew