Although luxury hotels are, in every respect, incredible and conspicuous wasters of resources (in the name of comfort), at least that means they’ve got nowhere to but green. So although you may safely blast the Sheraton, W, and Westin hotels among others for things like washing clean towels, throwing away used card keys and so on, at least you’ll know that when you turn on the tube for a little late-night decompression, you’ll be turning on a nice energy-efficient “green” TV.
That’s because Philips struck a deal with the Hotel meta-company Starwood to outfit all its hotels with Smartpower2 TVs, a line intended for this exact purpose and which boasts power savings of up to 40%. It may be that Starwood was looking at the bottom line: $12 million in power savings over the life of the TVs. Sure; as I read once, “corporate responsibility” may be a myth, but if we can make the “right” choice at the very least not cost them too much, they’ll be happy to do it for that more intangible benefit: the illusion that they care.