As the world's most diverse casino-entertainment company, Caesars Entertainment Corporation continues to lead the way in environmental stewardship with its property, Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort, receiving the Gold Certification for commendable environmental sustainability practices from the prestigious international certification program Travelife, a program that certifies and assists hotel properties in managing social and environmental issues. “Operating sustainably is core to who we are as a company and central to how we operate our property,” said Janet Beronio, Regional President of Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort. “We are proud to accept the Travelife Gold Certification and want to take this opportunity to recognize that our employees have been vital to the success of our ongoing environmentally friendly initiatives.” By fulfilling Travelife’s robust sustainability criteria, Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort has been awarded its highest commendation, the Travelife Gold Certification. Audited by the organization, the property and its staff demonstrated their commitment to sustainability by encouraging guests and local residents to get involved, actively seeking out new opportunities for improvement and adhering to planning procedures for new developments, as well as producing regular progress reports related to their local community relations initiatives. “Over the years, Caesars Entertainment properties have displayed exemplary sustainable operations efforts in limiting their energy use and waste production,” said Sören Stöber of Travelife. “We applaud Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort’s efforts to mitigate its impacts on the environment and meet Travelife’s comprehensive sustainability requirements.” Caesars Entertainment properties that have been previously recognized by Travelife with a Gold Certification include: Bally’s Las Vegas, Bills Gamblin’ Hall, Caesars Palace Las Vegas, Flamingo Las Vegas, Harrah’s Las Vegas Casino, Paris Las Vegas, and Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Imperial Palace was previously awarded with a Travelife Silver Certification. CodeGreen, the comprehensive environmental sustainability strategy at Caesars Entertainment, is the key driver to Caesars forward progression in meeting its sustainability goals. It focuses on critical issues of energy, waste, water and carbon emissions at all of its properties and seeks to positively impact the environment and communities in which it is privileged to operate. For further information about the CodeGreen strategy, its accolades and its employee-driven programs visit http://www.caesars.com/codegreen or the CodeGreen Blog at www.codegreen.harrahsblogs.com. ABOUT CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION Caesars Entertainment Corporation is the world's most geographically diversified casino-entertainment company. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, more than 74 years ago, Caesars has grown through development of new resorts, expansions and acquisitions, and now operates casinos on four continents. The company's resorts operate primarily under the Harrah's®, Caesars® and Horseshoe® brand names. Caesars also owns the World Series of Poker® and the London Clubs International family of casinos. Caesars Entertainment is focused on building loyalty and value with its guests through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence and technology leadership. Caesars is committed to environmental sustainability and energy conservation and recognizes the importance of being a responsible steward of the environment. For more information, please visit www.caesars.com. ABOUT CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT SUSTAINABILITY Caesars Entertainment's resorts are committed to environmental sustainability – investing at a corporate level more than $66 million on conservation projects that have reduced energy usage by more than 170 million kilowatt hours (kWh) and carbon emissions by 110,000 metric tons each year. One such investment is the use of solar and steam co-generation facilities at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and Showboat Atlantic City that capture waste heat and steam to create onsite energy, thereby decreasing demand for purchased electricity. Caesars’ nearly 70,000 employees drive its sustainability strategy, CodeGreen, through innovative environmentally responsible practices; implementing more than 110 large impact conservation projects to reduce water, energy and waste consumption at a corporate level. More than 200 of the company's employees have completed its Green Meetings & Events Certification training program, the only program of its kind in the industry. During the past eight years, CodeGreen programs have resulted in annual savings of 200 million gallons of water and 320,000 gallons of waste vegetable oil among other waste recycling efforts. Caesars Entertainment's leadership in environmental stewardship and energy efficiency has earned the company more than 40 environmental awards and multiple Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honors. Caesars has achieved "industry firsts" in transparency of impacts such as GRI protocol reporting and establishing aggressive carbon reduction goals around environmental and social metrics. For further information on Caesars’ CodeGreen efforts and its sustainability report visit www.caesars.com/codegreen or visit the CodeGreen blog at www.codegreen.harrahsblogs.com. ABOUT TRAVELIFE Founded in 2007, Travelife – Sustainability in Tourism is an initiative dedicated to promoting sustainable practices within the travel and tourism industry. It aims to provide travel companies with achievable sustainability goals, tools and solutions to implement positive change within their businesses and supply chains. The initiative is co-managed by ABTA – The Travel Association in the UK - and by ECEAT (European Centre for Ecological and Agricultural Tourism) in Amsterdam. Travelife has two key focuses: Travelife Sustainability System for Hotels and Accommodations: wholly owned and operated by ABTA, the certification system helps hotels and accommodations manage their social and environmental impacts and communicate their achievements to customers. The system provides an online sustainability checklist, based on European and International standards, to enable property managers to check their performance, gain advice and monitor progress. Once subscribed, properties undergo a third party audit to conduct a full environmental and social audit of their property and if they fulfil the criteria, properties may achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold awards, which can be displayed in brochures and on websites. To date nearly 17,000 properties have registered with the Travelife Sustainability System for hotels and accommodations, 1,500 have completed a full third party audit and more than 500 properties have achieved a Travelife award. The System is the only certification scheme that works in partnership with some of the largest tour operators in the world as well as smaller independents, who all use Travelife to manage their contracted hotels and accommodations. Consumers can view and book Travelife-awarded properties at: www.travelifecollection.com and for more information about the System please visit: www.travelife.org Travelife Sustainability System for Tour Operators and Travel Agencies: Operated by ECEAT, the system provides online training materials and practical tools for sustainability planning, managementand reporting. The training and online tools cover all aspects of the travel business and are suitable for companies of any size. Upon submitting a report and the completion of an independent audit, the travel company can obtain a Travelife Certificate. www.travelife.eu ###
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Sep 21, 2012 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST