Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has been serious about the environment since long before going green became all the rage. The brand that introduced a green guide almost two decades ago has continued to extend its sustainable reach, and earlier this week became the 21^st company to join the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Savers program.

Joining Fortune 500 corporations like Coca-Cola, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and Sony, Fairmont has agreed to a brand-wide plan to reduce operational carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2013. By 2010, the Climate Saver companies will have cut carbon emissions by approximately 14 million metric tons, the equivalent of taking more than three million cars off the road every year.

Twenty percent, for a company already intently focused on environmental efficiencies, is a pretty lofty goal. “This is not insignificant,” says Brian Richardson, Fairmont’s vice president of marketing and communications. “We haven’t exhausted all possibilities yet. We will get there. We’ve tried to be progressive and this is just a natural progression of that.”

Fairmont, Richardson says, will work on three different levels to reduce emissions by such a large number: human resources infrastructure and training (for example, employees doing a better job shutting off lights); operational procedures (such as offering bikes instead of cars for in-resort transportation); and capital expenditures (choosing more efficient heating and lighting systems when renovating).

“We really aren’t talking about spending incremental dollars to affect this 20 percent,” Richardson says. “Every hotel has (capital-expenditure) dollars to spend, so this may have an implication on how we spend that, but we fully expect to get to this without spending any incremental dollars. This will come as a consequence of changing business practices and through the natural course of capital expenditures.”

A benefit, of course, is this will reduce energy costs and create other financial efficiencies. “No question,” Richardson says. “This all makes good business sense. And makes sense on so many other levels.”

Fairmont President Thomas W. Storey said in a release: “We see our Climate Savers partnership with WWF as a sound strategic business decision, one that will help ensure destination health and contribute to the financial stability of the industry. Fairmont is proud to be the first global hotel brand to partner with WWF to tackle climate change.”

Fairmont, with 56 hotels in its portfolio, also announced several other sustainable initiatives. It will finalize a green procurement policy and supplier code of conduct by year end and then spend next year educating and encouraging its top suppliers to provide products in accordance. The company also will encourage developers and owners to build hotels to meet LEED-certified levels or consider the LEED for Existing Buildings rating system. Fairmont will do its part, too: The company will relocate its corporate offices in Toronto to a LEED Gold building by 2011, when its current lease is up.

Web Resources: http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/climatesavers2.html, http://www.fairmont.com/