>> good afternoon. thank you so much for joining us today on this notable moment in

the kempton family's life. i'm doug price, the general manager of the sir francis drake hotel. i'd like to introduce you to our chief executive officer, mike tabati. [applause] >> thank you, john. welcome, everybody, it's great to be here today. the mayor is apparently on his way. will make a grand entrance in just a moment. i want to thank everybody for coming. as many of you know, kempton has a very long history as a leader and a pioneer in the hospitality industry for our earth care program and practices. really started back years ago when bill kempton in his first hotel here in san francisco nearly 30 years ago. and since that time over the last 30 years, we've been able to add a lot of hotels to our system. we now have 10 hotels here in san francisco. actually one in coopertino.

54 fine dining restaurants. during that time, since our first hotel, we've been amassing high-impact, non-intrusive, eco-friendly operational business practices, to reduce energy and waste consumption in our hotels, and we do things that include trying to find the smartest and best price to use that have the least impact on the environment. we've been a very big supporter of the trust republic land and the nature conservancy as well. and we've done all this without sacrificing the care and comfort that's so important to all our customers. and now we incorporate more than 100 ecofriendly business practices every day at every one of our hotels. and over time, that's added up to a very big effort. and we like to talk about the impact that it's had, and the way we talk about it has been how many olympic swimming pool

sizes of water have we saved, or how many thousands of houses that we could have lit up with the energy that we saved. so we decided that maybe we need to be a little bit more scientific about that and maybe have somebody come from the outside and actually validate our claims of what we have been doing. so a couple years ago, we started doing some research, and we now have come to an organization called green seal that is in the business of validating and finding the best practices for ecological companies like ourselves. they came in and they said, hey, you guys really are doing a good job, you really are saving a lot of energy. so i've got to tell you that, again, with 50 hotels and 50 restaurants, it's really a big impact that we've made. so this week, we've announced on

monday, we're announcing today, actually, excuse me, that we're green seal certified in all of our hotels here in san francisco. and we're not only green seal serlt if ied, we're green seal certified at the silver level, which is a very substantial accomplishment. giving you an idea what a big deal that is, in california, there's only nine other hotels that are green seal certified. so with one move, we more than doubled the number of green sealed hotels in california, and making san francisco the most ecologically and environmentally responsible city in california, and probably the whole nation. but i've got to tell you that les more good news, and the other good news is that there's -- we're rolling this program out throughout the country. we're close now to having all of our hotels green seal certified, and that's 50 hotels in 22 cities and 16 states, so it's a rather big deal. so we're on track to be the

largest hotel company in the country that's green seal certified. and we have a lot of fun things planned to commemorate our earth care program and the green seal certification. nicky, our president and chief op right officer, will share a few of those with you. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mike. hi, everyone. it's great to see you all here today as we share this important milestone to us here at kempton. i actually happen to get very excited about quantifying some results, so i want to share with you today some truly staggering statistics about earth care statistics in our hometown. in our hotels alone, switching all of our standard c.f.l.'s

removes 32,182 pounds of carbon dioxide from the environment per room per year. in the bay area, with 2,181 rooms, that's approximately 321, 824 pounds of carbon dioxide gone in the environment. our san francisco hotels in just one month achieved 65% diversion rate. that's about 151 tons of garbage diverted from landfills. that amounts to about the equivalent of 75 cards stacked on top of each other, eliminated from landfill. and in water conservation, our bay area effort saves two million gallons of water per year, per hotel. for all of our 10 hotels here in the bay area, that's 20 million

gallons per year, the amount that would fill roughly 33 olympic-sized swimming pools. before i go on, i want to acknowledge the employees of kempton hotels and restaurants, many of who are here today. while bill kempton inspired so much of our commit toment the environment and social responsibility, from day one, it's been our employees who have helped us move this program forward. it has been our employees who have ground kempton's earth care program into a program that other hotel companies aspire to, and that civic and private sector organizations have molded and watchdog organizations that protect consumers from green washers have endorsed. some of our best practices across the country have come from our bright and passionate young employees at individual hotel and restaurants and

throughout all levels of our organization. it's our employees who have raised their hand and asked us important questions about how can we be better, what can we do differently. they've asked questions like, do we really need two phone books in every hotel room? no, we don't. they've asked questions like, all these uniforms come in on hangers that need to be recycled instead of dumped into landfills. can we work with the dry cleaning companies to change that? it's our employees who are responsible for the continuing evolution of our earth friendly efforts. and i need to give a special shoutout today to our facilities and engineering teams for taking us through the rigorous, meticulous, and at times painstaking detail and documentation that was necessary to earn green seal certification. without them, we couldn't be announcing this today. so as mike said, as a symbol of kempton's commitment to environmental stability, today we're inviting our public to come in and relinquish a

standard lightbulb, and exchange, we'll replace with it a new energy-efficient lightbulb, on us. that's going on right now between noon and 2:00 at all 10 of our san francisco kempton hoe tells. that include the sir francis drake, the prescott hotel, the serano, the monaco, and the tuscan inn. to reward people for doing this, we're making a nice offer available from our restaurants in the city as well. little cards right there. pick one up. with that, i'd like to thank car are of kara's cupcakes who's helping us celebrate today by taking her caravan around to all of our certified hotels in the city and giving out free cupcakes. you might catch her before she leaves for the next destination,

which i think is the prescott hotel on post street. so just chatting with kara and want to acknowledge the earth care commitment, the commitment to the environment that kara's cupcakes has made also is pretty substantial. now i'd like to introduce you michelle perrault, who is with us today. michelle served on the better of drook or thes for green seal in san francisco and we're very happy to have her here. thank you so so much, michelle. [applause] >> i'm very pleased to be here representing green seal and also say that green seal is so proud to be able to be working with the kempton hotels in greening not only san francisco, but the nation. green seal is the oldest independent third party that deals with ecolabels, and it's celebrating 20 years of its work. green seal has been working to

improve the lodging industry across the nation since 1996, and it has at this point over 100 service hotels. the -- certified hotels. the standard for green seal helps to increase the products, the green products, the green services and assist in aiding green jobs within a city. a certified green seal hotel gets rid of the -- approximately 400 tons in average to a regular hotel. that's like taking 73 cars off the road. the strict standards that have been employed to address the certification for the kempton hotels have included an audit, not just energy audit, but a full audit of each of the hotels. so, again, i would sigh that

green seal couldn't be more pleased to be here and to say how important it is that kempton hotels have provided environmental leadership, not only here in the city, but as a model for their industry. [applause] >> thank you, michelle. now i'd like to ask the mayor to make a few comments. thank you very much. >> thank you all for taking the time to be here. i just wanted to congratulate kempton group for their example. i appreciate intimately the work you are doing because it's the work we are doing in the city and county of san francisco, trying to lead by example. we talk about leadership not in the exacts of the spelling lead, but leed, the leed certification

that has allowed san francisco to have the toughest standards of any city in america. we take this very seriously, not just because we're concerned about our global footprint in the context of our local footprint, not just because we believe that the issue of global climate change is real and is now more real than ever. and by no means has gone away just because you had a cold, cycle, where everyone decided it was over. we also recognize the jobs component of this. let me give you brief specific factual example. you put $1 billion -- take $1 billion, and you invest in a cole plant, you'll create about 870 jobs. it sounds fine until you consider you could take that same billion dollars and put it into a nuclear plant and generate about a thousand to 1,500 jobs on the high end. but if you get in the renewable energy business, you take that

billion dollars and put it into solar, you generate 1,900 jobs, but the big game-changer is in greening buildings. when you renovate, when you take buildings like this and their legacy systems and you convert them with more energy efficiency, you generate through the effort of that investment for every billion dollars, over 7,000 jobs. this is the number one ticket to a broad-based economic growth strategy. investing in our sustainable future. you don't have to give a damn, with all due respect, about climate change, but i imagine every single one of you do give a darn about what's going on with our economy and unemployment. and if any of you are associated with the buildings and construction trades, you're talking about unemployment

rates, and i was talking with some people where some of those trades have 40-plus unemployment right now. they care deeply about the issue of jobs. and what they're celebrating here today at kempton is job creation. what they're celebrating is that multiple, not only of the jobs that's being created, but the job that also can be saved because the operation of the buildings are lower. which means not only the shareholders and investors in the kempton group do better, but so do their employees that work in those hotels because they're more likely to be a few extra dollars lying around for bonuses, for retention commitments, and for new hires. so this just makes absolute sense, no matter what your political ideology is, be it you're on the far left that only believes the worlds is going to collapse if we don't turn out every light and get out of our car and start walking, and i'm saying that tongue-in-cheek, or you're someone that just bleeds conservative and doesn't care

about anything to do with social construct or believes in social compact or believes the environment matter at all, but you just have a raw desire to reduce costs and create jobs. so i'm here wearing both of those hats. so extending to those extremes the narrative of progress and pragmatism, which is exactly what the kempton group is leading again by example. and showing the way for other hotel chains, the boutique hotel companies, not just in our city, but across the country, that this can be done. it's not going to bankrupt you. it doesn't matter what the economic environment is. doesn't matter what your a.d.r.'s are, you can make this invest. today and you're going to pay not more, you're going to pay less and your dividend is going to increase to the shareholders and the folks that are your team members and your work force because you did the right thing and you did the smart thing.

so let me just acknowledge formally that, michael, your leadership has has eliss ited -- or allowed us to consider, especially when bill was around, because he would have us doing something. we'll add to the list. it would probably be in a basement of some hotel somewhere. but not the first mayor, is my point. not the first time. but today is only one day in a year. and this year, this day, will forever be known as kempton day because of this example and this leadership. [applause] >> that's quite an honor.

thank you, mayor. maybe you would join us, nicky and i, and we are going to be passing our compact fluorescent bulbs. perhaps, mayor, you could help by as passing out the first bulb. >> oh, yeah.

>> good afternoon. i'm the director san francisco's

department of the environment. we are here today with our partners to make an announcement about san francisco's accomplishments in the cycling that can only be called the story. san francisco is a city that knows how to recycle. over the years, our city has been a nationwide later in recycling, and mayor newsom has made it a priority to develop new recycling and composting programs, set aggressive goals, and keep us on track. without further delay, it is my pleasure to introduce mayor gavin newsom, who has some spectacular news. mayor newsom: i think this is the completion of your first week on the job. melanie was with the speaker's office doing similar work, so that we could be successful in san francisco and but in a position to make a lot of the announcements we have been making bore over the last number of years. i happen to think this is a big

deal. i think that other cities across the country that struggle to deal with the issue of their diversion rates with landfills that are literally filling up, that are becoming floating regattas of landfills that are being pushed up and down rivers and across the coast and around the continent, that this represents an important milestone, the cities can think differently and act differently and do some of them substantially differently -- do something substantially differently as it relates to their waist. what we know, we do not think, is that 1 million to 1.5 million people are moving into the urban cores and consuming roughly 80% of the earth's natural resources in these urban centers. what do you do with that consumption? what do you do with that waste? what do you do with the construction debris associated with accommodating for that mass

urbanization as it relates to the majority of the planet now living in these urban course? in san francisco, we have answered these questions to the degree that no other american city has answered. we have answered these questions in a way that not only protect our environmental framework and footprint but at it -- advances and economic framework and paradigm that creates wealth, opportunities, jobs, as we reduce our aversion rates and greenhouse gas emissions concurrently. this is a big announcement. was not that long ago that i got into local government, that we. 35% of our waste was being diverted from the landfill. it was pretty good at the time, and i'm not 90 years old. it was not that long ago. and we set these audacious targets, people saying, "there

they go once again. this cannot be done nearly this will destroynqñ!ó the economic c of the city. this is burdensome, the government coming in and determining how someone should ask, how someone should " weç hit that goal. people said it was amazing. other cities said that it was amazing and asked how we did it. they came out here, and we started to see the first groups of folks coming on tour, not to see coit tower, not to see the golden gate bridge, not to jump on a cable car or go down to the birthplace of the biotech industry or ucsf. they started coming down to the recycling facility. foreign leaders coming onshore to the recycling facility asking how we did it. we have experts from government, from business. we saw folks in academia saying that san francisco is doing something right, so we reach that milestone of 15%, and we

said that is not a stretch bowl. that was a good and impressive first start, but let's raise the bar. what we did a number of years ago, i think it was seven years ago, we set forth our new, more audacious goals, and that goal was to reach 75% of version by 2010. -- 75 percent diversion. and eventually get to zero waste by 2020. people said that was cute, that was fun, but these guys have lost it because they do not understand. i remember listening to these experts saying that we just did not understand how it works. the first 50% or 60% is the easy part. once you get past 60% or 65%, then every% increase comes at a huge cost. it is too difficult, but we thought we could put it

together, and one of the ideas was to create a construction and debris ordinance, which we passed in 2006. this was landmark legislation. where we said if you were going to develop or get in the construction business or remodel or reconstruct and demolish, the you have got to get -- what? roughly 60%? 65% of that debris diverted. that helped. the construction industry was not necessarily opposed. they saw some benefit. they have got to dispose of this one way or another. requires some on-site disposals and strategies that at the time took a little different kind of thinking, but eventually, people got it right. we extended the small folks you see behind me in the pickup truck, so they do not have to worry about their back yard and their little kitchen, but for the bigger projects, we did this, and suddenly, our numbers

started to creep up over 70%. no city in america has ever come close to that. there are cities just down the road that have not even reach 50%. big cities can never even imagined 50% or 55%, and here we are. i remember being mayor out here a number of years back, and we were proud of 7%. they said it would be very difficult to reach that 75%. that income is tough. until last year when we came out and we were out here and we have the hard hats on, and we came out and said because not only that construction and building debris ordinance, but because of this new idea on composting, which we realize was a big component of the remaining waste that is here that was not being diverted that if we could raise the bar be on the first ordinance with this next order is, that we could reach that

goal, and we announced that we were close. we were at 72%. this again was historic and people were mesmerized, and no one more than us, that we could reach that goal because the incredible work that you see from the folks behind me and the imagination of recology. and then composting happen. first city in america to require composting. "san francisco's off the deep been. they have lost." we do not know why it did not happen before. the ban on plastic bags, and no one could shop again. we have shut the economy down. water bottles. now with composting, you have gone too far. "you mean, sir, that you will require me to take eggshells, and i have to put them where? the green, the blue, no, no,t