you're walk along. so i guess we're doing that. >> we're here to talk truancy. we've got a new partnership. we're trying to encourage kids to stay in school.

it's really innovative. the whole idea is to try to get merchants and encourage them to help out. instead of just hanging out here in the middle of the day. not to get you in the middle of these things, but we've got a number -- [inaudible] -- just help us encourage these kids. >> kids with their upbringing and their background -- [inaudible] -- the football program getting cut. >> some of them are going to be

plumbers or a nasa scientist. we want to encourage them. >> we have academies. so we're putting -- [inaudible] -- we're encouraging everybody to go to college. but some kids are in more technical jobs. >> and that's fine. >> and let that be their choice and not the system. because we need to get them in school. and if they're not in school, they won't be successful at all. >> there's so many things involved with that. i mean, it's all interwoven. [inaudible]

>> 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.