Ritz-Carlton goes green (Charlotte)

Being good to the environment might mean making a few personal sacrifices. Some low-impact consumers avoid bottled water or don’t take long, hot showers.

So how does a hotel chain with a well-earned reputation for luxury also meet strict guidelines for being green? “Going without” at the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte seems incongruent.

The answer is you don’t go without. You just do things differently.

“This hotel dispels that myth that green means granola,” says Denise Naguib, the Washington-based corporate director of environmental programs at Ritz-Carlton. “You can still be extremely luxurious. For us it’s an opportunity to showcase for people how you can live well and be good to the environment.”

To understand why the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte, which opened in October, is trying to marry the ecological with the extravagant, first look to the hotel’s owner, Bank of America Corp.

Read the full story in the Charlotte Business Journal.