All but one of the town's 15 lodgings qualify as green hotels. Though its population barely exceeds 3,300, enough visitors flow into this picturesque town from surrounding ski areas to keep occupancy high. The greening grew out of the Chester Innkeepers Association, a mostly social organization founded in 1984. Jo-Ann Jorgensen joined it in 2005 after moving from Denmark to open the Park Light Inn. She weatherized, insulated, installed low-flow toilets and showerheads, dispensed with bottled water and individually packaged toiletries, introduced a towel-reuse program, and more. One of the biggest paybacks came early: Her heating bill dropped by 40 percent, even though she had added square footage. And her enthusiasm proved infectious. Within two years, the association voted unanimously to require green hotel status as a condition for membership.
Green hotels offer close to a peak ecological experience
Tourism heats up but the goal is cool carbon footprints
"The impact has been tremendous," Jorgensen said. "It has changed all types of things in the community." The association is setting up a cooperative to purchase Vermont-made soaps and shampoos, and establishing the Chester Green Business Alliance, the next step toward the creation of what they hope will be Vermont's first green town. Already about a quarter of Chester's businesses have adopted environmental management plans.
The state's restaurants have been slower to go green. Despite a thriving chef-farmer partnership and an active localvore movement, only two establishments are waving green banners. A deli called Think! opened this year at Burlington's ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center. Half cafe, half exhibit, it's a model of waste reduction, challenging visitors to consider every speck of trash they discard. A few blocks up the hill, the Magnolia Bistro takes a quieter approach.
Shannon Reilly, 32, who runs the brick-walled breakfast and lunch spot with his partner, July Sanders, 28, said the two didn't go environmental for marketing reasons, but because of what they witnessed during their years working restaurant jobs.
"It was a really wasteful industry," Reilly said. "We would see, like, huge containers of trash going out twice a day. We basically wanted to take how we live at home and put it into our business plan," one of fair-trade coffee and organic, heavily vegetarian dishes. "Some things cost more. But in the end, it comes back to you."
Diane Foulds can be reached at dianefoulds@burlingtontelecom.net.