Rental Chain's Conservation Effort Inspired by Arctic Cruise

 

By Mike Salmon

When Lou Boros dries off from his morning shower, he hangs up his towel instead of throwing it in the hamper.

 

No big deal, except that Boros, a State Department employee from North Carolina, is living in temporary housing that includes laundry service and fresh towels. Nonetheless, he is following conservation suggestions from the management of his Arlington County apartment building, which has embarked on a company-wide initiative to save water and electricity to combat global warming.

 

"All of this is a great idea. We all live in one world, we ought to be taking care of this planet," Boros said. "I don't need a new towel every day."

 

The building, Oakwood Crystal City, is owned by Los Angeles-based Oakwood Worldwide. The privately held firm, which has operations around the world, owns about 40 apartment complexes in the United States and Canada that are a mix of furnished short-term rentals and longer-term rentals. It also leases individual units in other buildings that it rents out as corporate housing. The State Department and military are among its biggest customers. Locally, it owns buildings in Gaithersburg, Falls Church and Rosslyn as well as Crystal City.

 

Oakwood's chief executive, Howard Ruby, became an environmental evangelist after a cruise last year off the Norwegian coast where he saw the effects of warming temperatures on polar bears. His ship should have been dodging ice floes, but he saw open water everywhere. Just 500 miles from the North Pole, "there were no ice floes," he said. With no ice, the polar bears have nothing to support their offshore fishing expeditions and are now in danger. "They're dying fast," he said.

 

He decided to do something about it: Oakwood is investing $2 million in environmentally friendly washers and dryers, toilets and shower heads, roofing materials, hot water systems, air-conditioning units, fluorescent lighting and other small things around the buildings that will add up to a lot, he said.

 

"Some of the things we are doing are so basic," he said, adding that these steps are being taken at no additional cost to the residents.

 

He decided to do something about it: Oakwood is investing $2 million in environmentally friendly washers and dryers, toilets and shower heads, roofing materials, hot water systems, air-conditioning units, fluorescent lighting and other small things around the buildings that will add up to a lot, he said.

 

"Some of the things we are doing are so basic," he said, adding that these steps are being taken at no additional cost to the residents.

 

In addition, with photographs that he took of polar bears, Ruby made a calendar, a DVD and trading cards that his company is handing out.

 

"We're going to make the polar bear the face of global warming. It's a whole outreach program," he said.

 

In its local buildings, Oakwood handed out the calendars and placed polar bear stickers around the apartments to remind residents of the conservation program. An insert in the calendar outlines the measures Ruby suggests, including:

According to the calendar, "If 10 percent of Oakwood's guests simply reduce their energy and water usage by 5 percent, it will result in a reduction of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases by more than 1 million pounds."

 

Phil Baldez, a temporary resident at the Oakwood in Falls Church, doesn't mind the request. "I think that's fair to ask anyone everywhere in the world to do that," he said.

 

Nan Stewart, who also lives at Oakwood Falls Church, said that at home in Oregon, she uses a towel a couple of times before putting it in the wash, so she might as well do the same on the road. "For me that's fine," she said, calling Oakwood's initiative "an excellent idea."

 

In Oakwood's Los Angeles corporate office, they are photocopying on both sides of every piece of paper. If this is practiced in all the Oakwood offices, it will save 121 trees and $2,500 over a year, Ruby said. He plans to put any money saved into making the apartments and offices more efficient, as well as raising awareness of global warming.

 

The conservation measures Oakwood is taking aren't original -- it's common for hotels to urge their guests to reuse their towels and sheets, for instance. And many apartment companies across the country are going green, said Eileen Lee, the spokeswoman on environmental issues at the National Multi Housing Council in Washington.

 

Measures such as changes in lighting fixtures, water use and environmentally friendly building materials were the subject of a group discussion at one of the council's recent meetings, Lee said. Oakwood has long been a member of the association, and Ruby is known to fellow members as "a visionary," she said.

 

Ruby said he hopes his efforts to fight global warming are contagious. "I think it's time," he said.

 

Not all of Oakwood's residents are so enthusiastic. At least three tenants who were interviewed, all of whom declined to give their names, questioned the program. One woman at Oakwood Crystal City thought the money saved from the lower bills should be applied to reducing rents; a woman at Oakwood Falls Church didn't buy the global warming concept, and a woman at Oakwood Rosslyn said she thought the planet was destined to incinerate for religious reasons.