Virginia Green Travel Forum - This webinar series will feature environmental issues, opportunities, and success stories that affect Virginia's Travel industry. Learn from experts and engage with your peers who care about the environment. Let's work together to support green tourism in Virginia. Stay tuned for the next Virginia Green Travel Forum!

Previous Forums: 

• October 2022 - Virginia Green Travel 101 & the Newly Re-Launched Virginia Green Travel Certification Process
• November 2022 - What in the heck is going on with recycling these days?!
• December 2022 - How to WIN a Virginia Green Travel Star Award
• January 2023 - Partnering to Support Green & Beautiful Communities
• July 2023 - Environmental Communication 101: Getting Your Message Across
• September 2023 - Making Your Events Green!
• November 2023 - Beyond the Basics: What You Need to Know About Recycling
• January 2024 - Partnering with Virginia State Parks to Support Outdoor Recreation and Sustainable Tourism.
• June 2024 - From Butts to Benches: Cigarette Litter Prevention Opportunities
• October 2024 - Electric Vehicle Amenities and Clean Transportation Opportunities
• December 2024 - A New Day! The Re-Branding/Re-Launching of the Virginia Green Travel Program (Code: 2jPXd7Qd)
• June 2025 - Massanutten Resort's Holistic Approach to Sustainability
• October 2025 - Composting Made Easy

• Virginia Green Travel Sustainable Event Guide
• EPA Guide to Planning a Green Conference or Meeting

• Virginia Green Travel Waste Diversion Calculator

Carbon Calculators

• EPA's Carbon Footprint Calculator: This household calculator estimates your footprint in three areas - home energy, transportation and waste.
• Carbon Fund's Office Emissions Calculator: This office calculator estimates a business carbon footprint based on utility bills, number of employees or office space.
• Conservation International's Carbon Footprint Calculator: This calculator lets you estimate the carbon emissions for yourself, your household, a trip or an event.

Energy Treasure Hunt Guides

• Treasure Map for Hotels/Motels/Inns
• Treasure Map for Restaurants and Commercial Kitchens
• Treasure Map for Microbreweries

ENERGY STAR Resources

• Action Workbook for Small Businesses

Is your facility interested in reducing or eliminating the use of straws? Use these Virginia Green Travel Straw Cards to help inform your customers about "skipping the straw" and how it helps the environment.

• Straw Card Option 1
• Straw Card Option 2
• Straw Card Table Tent Option 1
• Straw Card Table Tent Option 2

The Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency has resilience tools specifically designed for tourism businesses.

• Tourism Business Resilience Self-Assessment: This self-assessment is a simple checklist to help you determine your ability to stay open during and after extreme weather events or natural disasters. The tool includes links to help you improve your organization's resilience.
• Tourism Business Resilience Workshop Slideshow: Review the slideshow from the Tourism Business Resilience Workshop to learn how business owners and managers can assess their level of resilience to natural hazards and provide tools to increase resilience.

• Virginia Green Travel Suppliers Network (VGSN) serves as a one-stop-shop for Virginia Green Travel and other tourism facilities that are searching for green products and services.
• Green & Clean is the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation's Initiative to recognize companies that have committed to responsible lawn care practices.
• The BioPreferred Catalog is a listing of biobased products.
• Green Seal is a non-profit organization that uses science-based programs to empower consumers, purchasers and companies to create a more sustainable world.
• Safer Choice is EPA's program aimed at making it easy for consumers to find products that are safe for people and the environment. Products with the Safer Choice logo have met stringent criteria for product ingredients, product performance, pH, packaging and more.
• ENERGY STAR^® is the government-backed symbol for energy efficiency, providing simple information that consumers and businesses can rely on to make informed decisions.
• WaterSense is an EPA national voluntary partnership program that offers a simple way for consumers to identify water-efficient products.

Lodging

• Green Lodging News
• Hotel Footprinting Tool

Marinas

• Good Mate Recreational Boating & Marina Manual
• Virginia Clean Marina Program

Restaurants

• National Restaurant Association's Conserve Program focuses on environmentally sensitive restaurant practices for energy, water efficiency, recycling and composting.
• The Foodservice Technology Center promotes energy and water efficiency for the industry and tests food service equipment.
• Green Restaurant Association
• Putting Energy into Profits: Energy Star Guide for Restaurants

Breweries

• The Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center has a variety of resources for breweries, including information detailing pollution prevention opportunities and best practices for the craft brewing industry.

Golf Courses

• Environmental Best Management Practices for Virginia's Golf Courses
• Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf
• Having an approved Nutrient Management Plan is a requirement for joining Virginia Green as a Golf Course. For more information visit The Department of Conservation and Recreation's Nutrient Management Program Website.

Creating a Green Team promotes buy-in and gets more staff involved in your environmental program.  The Green Team helps develop and implement green programs.  It’s important the team include representatives from different business areas, including management, facilities, food-service (front & back of house), maintenance, and more.  Having input from different areas allows the team to design programs that work throughout the organization.  Setting goals and a process for achieving them will help the team stay focused. The team will be helpful in coordinating the changes the environmental programs are making and educating staff.  Look for Green Team members that are enthusiastic about environmental programs.  Encourage the team to take ownership of projects and promote goals.  The Green Team should let other employees know what programs they are implementing and what the benefit to the agency and/or environment is. 

• Choose a green team leader
• Include members from various areas of your organization
• Encourage ownership of projects
• Start small and focus on a few items
• Get feedback from staff, stakeholders and clients 

DEQ’s Office of Pollution Prevention hosted a webinar on Increasing Buy-In through Communication for Environmental Programs.  Learn from Roanoke Cement and GE’s strategies to get employees involved.  The recorded webinar is available here.

• Energy Savings & Rebates Opportunities Energy saving programs and rebated are offered through Dominion Energy’s Non-Residential programs. Many of these programs are offered at no cost and can provide for substantial savings and rebates. Some of the information included on Dominion Energy's website can seem daunting, but the contracted staff for these programs are available to help you find the services and designated contractors that can take care of the paperwork, evaluations, etc. Some of the main offerings to consider are:
  • Test and Seal /HVAC Tune-up & Evaluation which includes evaluation and repairs to ductwork and would also involve an evaluation of automated control systems.
  • Lighting evaluation which can provide direct rebates for moving to LED lighting.
  • Compressed air. They have a program specific to this to evaluate needs and recommend adjustments that offers rebates.
  • Walk-ins/refrigeration evaluation for motors and gaskets with rebates. Coil cleaning is also provided with this type of evaluation.
  • Window tinting
  • These programs are staffed by Honeywell.
    • Ken Previs, Program Manager for Non-Residential Savings/Rebate Programs 804-212-4149
    • Mark Price, Honeywell Compressed Air Systems 804-3340-9143
• Dominion has a new energy efficiency incentive program for the Hotel and Lodging industry that is being administered by TRC. Reach out to TRC representative Hannah Kelley to learn more about making efficiency upgrades to your facility. For projects with an anticipated incentive less than or equal to $10,000, customers can apply after equipment purchase and installation to receive a fast incentive check. Preapproval must be obtained for all Prescriptive and Custom projects over $10,000 before equipment purchase and installation. You can also learn more about Dominion Energy’s Energy Solutions for Hotels and sign up to receive email updates on all of their Energy Solution Programs.
• Virginia Energy Sense provides details on valuable federal and state incentives for residential, commercial and industrial energy consumers in Virginia.
• Energy Star – Energy Efficiency Rebates for Commercial Buildings | ENERGY STAR by state. Also see Finance Energy Efficient Projects
• Virginia Department of Environmental Quality – Programs and Financial Incentives
• The Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency

• The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program is a federal-state partnership that provides communities low-cost financing for a wide range of water quality infrastructure projects
• The Alliance for Water Efficiency serves as a North American advocate for water-efficient products and programs, and provides information and assistance on water conservation efforts.

• Grants - Brewers Association
• Search Grants | GRANTS.GOV allows the user to use search criteria to identify eligible grant opportunities funded by federal agencies Small Business Administration (SBA) Grants: The SBA mainly helps small businesses find conventional means of funding, such as loans. But they also have a few grant programs targeted specifically at companies involved with research or exporting.
• SAM.gov (formerly the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance): This is a great federal database with a modern re-design. While there is some overlap with Grants.gov, you’ll find a few unique pointers that make it worth your while to check out. You can use the advanced search filters to see only grant recipients, or you can see other funding sources like loans.
• Challenge.gov: This isn’t technically a site that offers a grant program, but the program does offer significant amounts of prize money for solving challenges facing a variety of industries. Many of these challenges are technology-oriented, but there are non-tech ones as well. If you’re doing something innovative, monitor Challenge.gov for relevant challenges that might be easy for your small business to win.
• EPA Grants: The EPA offers dozens of grants to small businesses that are trying to improve the environment, particularly in innovative ways. There are grants targeted towards air quality, environmental quality, water quality, pollution prevention, and more.
• Lending Tree: Lending Tree primarily offers different types of loans, but also periodically runs small business grant contests. They judge companies based on how passionate the founders are, and if growing their business will affect the community in a positive way
• USDA Grants: If you have an agricultural or food service business, you may have a good shot at a grant from the USDA. They have these seven grant programs:

• Community Connect Grants
• Rural Business Development Grants
• Rural Energy for America Program Renewable Energy Systems & Energy Efficiency
• Socially-Disadvantaged Groups Grant