Just a quick update to a story I wrote for our Green Issue, the Orchard Hotel in San Francisco earned LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance certification. The significance of this? The hotel becomes the second California hotel to earn this designation—the first was the Ambrose Hotel in Santa Monica—and just the fourth world-wide. The majority of LEED-certified hotels are through the new construction track. Although as LEED EB, a late addition to the USGBC's green rating system, becomes more prevalent, I think we'll see more hotels pursue this option. It's not easy, but an already eco-conscious hotel probably could earn certification with a not-so-significant financial investment (time and effort, though, might be significant). And obviously becoming more efficient in operations and maintenance means a significant payback, potentially enough to cover the cost of upgrades in just a few years.