Quintess Continues To Make Progress On Green Initiatives

By: Destination Club News
Date: July 30, 2010

Luxury travel club Quintess, The Leading Residences of the World has long brought an eco-friendly approach to their design, not only bringing a more "green" philosophy to their operational structure but also reducing costs for the world's third largest destination club.

Quintess has enlisted Lumen Eco Services, the world's largest hospitality-focused environmental sustainability consultancy group, to help create an all-encompassing energy consumption management program, allowing the club the ability to track and minimize expenses relating to their properties. By constantly monitoring energy consumption patterns at their residences, Quintess has begun to plan and implement a series new initiatives, including:

• Solar energy to heat the water for properties in Canouan and Hawaii with plans to expand into other destinations later this year.
• Switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs where appropriate.
• Providing stainless steel water bottles for members rather than plastic.
• Setting up recycling programs in destinations that support recycling pick-up.
• Testing timers for hot tubs and fire pits.

Long in the works, we spoke with Quintess President Greg Eure earlier this year about the progress the club has made. "When we dove into energy usage at all of the homes, we made huge strides (in 2009), which isn’t just good for the business, but just good in general," he said. "Consolidating our billing processes, understanding at the circuit level in our homes how things are used and how we can make everything more efficient. It is something that we haven’t talked about much, but it is something we will be talking about and building into the product because people ask those questions. Every hotel has their own green initiative, as do we, but we have laid the foundation to take it up a notch during the past year. We are laying the foundation for smart homes where we can monitor so they perform accurately and where we will use our assets more efficiently. If the hot water heater was running, it may have taken us awhile to identify it, but now we are in a position to know instantly."

Through the programs implemented by Quintess over the past year, a 20% reduction in the amount of energy consumed by the club's properties is expected, the equivalent of the carbon emissions of 50 homes across the US the club proudly states.

While the energy consumption of their growing portfolio is of crucial importance to the club, their members are paramount. Quintess has recently restructured their pricing so that comparisons to other destinations clubs is easier and to give members additional flexibility to design a membership specifically to their unique travel needs.

Quintess provides members exclusive access to over 80 vacation homes in over 40 of the world's most highly sought after destinations, including Los Cabos, Mexico; Telluride, Colorado; New York City, New York; and Paris; France.