Guest Services, Inc.
2009 Mayor's Environmental Excellence Award Winner:
Outstanding Achievement by a Large Business
Guest Services, Inc. is a 91-year old District of Columbia corporation, with 54 units around the District, employing over 500 people. Since 2007, all facilities are required to be built and operated in compliance with our environmental management program, known as “our Planet.”
Construction/Development in the District
Guest Services constructed two retail/food kiosks adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial. Both kiosks utilize energy conserving closed-loop geothermal HVAC and refrigeration systems. These systems use the constant temperature of the earth 400 feet below the kiosks to cool and heat the air in the kiosks, and cool the walk-in refrigerators, freezers, and operate the ice-making machine.
This system provides these benefits:
- Saving 2.1 million gallons of fresh water/year/per kiosk (4.2 million gallons/year total) by geothermal cooling of the ice-making machine versus a conventional water-cooled icemaker of similar capacity.
- A 50% reduction in electricity to heat space inside kiosks (compared to conventional heating systems).
- Forty-percent reduction of refrigerant in the refrigerators, freezers, and ice-making machines.
- Aesthetic benefit of no external condensers or cooling towers.
Operations in the District
All facilities participate in our extensive environmental/recycling program.
- At food service facilities, all cooking oil is recycled and converted to biodiesel.
- All three recreational-boat marinas have been certified as “Clean Marinas” by the District of Columbia.
- The Rock Creek Horse Center converts all horse manure (3,100 cubic yards a year) for use as growth media for commercial turf farm compost.
- All facilities utilize green cleaning products, which are biodegradable/biocompatible.
- The East Potomac Tennis Center installed wind sensors which are connected to the fans that keep the tennis bubbles inflated. This system saves approximately 20% on electrical usage needed to keep the tennis bubbles inflated.
- We are working with the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop recycling programs for visitors to the National Mall.
Guest Services Green Team
(From left to right)
Dan Maillet, Paulette Lassiter, and Douglas Verner