 Ritz-Carlton, Vail, Colorado. Winter.  Ritz-Carlton's director of engineering pays only $16/month on his home electric bill most of the year. Learn how his simple energy efficiency behavior changes have brought major cost savings to the Ritz-Carlton and to the staff who take that wisdom home with them. Natalie Pace, the co-creator and executive director of the Earth Gratitude project, interviews Jasen Brown, the director of engineering at two Ritz-Carlton resorts in Colorado. Jasen is also the chair of the Rocky Mountain Business Council. Learn more about how engineering can optimize the sustainable goals of business, and how those lessons can add up to more money in the wallet for every person who works for the company (and for those of us who apply these eco, cost-saving hacks). The conversation covers energy efficiency, eliminating plastic and single-use, composting, behavioral changes, solar and more. As Jasen points out, “Behavior change is free.” We’re highlighting some of the important areas Natalie and Jasen discussed below. For the full interview, go to YouTube.com/NataliePace or listen as a podcast on NataliePace.Substack.com.  Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor's Gulch. Summer. Managing the Sun for Passive Heating and Cooling (1:30) How the simple use of drapes can heat or cool a room. Free Cooling vs. Expensive HVAC (5:25) “We were using a lot of mechanical cooling in the winter. It was puzzling to me why we were using mechanical cooling when it was 20 below [in Bachelor Gulch, Colorado]... We were able to re-engineer our free cooling system just by adding capacity and equipment that we already had.” - Jasen Brown Cost Savings of Reducing Your Need for Heating and Cooling (7:00) “The more I can stay off of the major utility grid [the better]… There is expected to be a surge in demand charges this summer. We monitor those times to ensure utility savings at the end of the month.” - Jasen Brown Simple Hacks to Monitor the Sun that Can Save Money on Your Electric Bill (9:10) “What we do at work is important. These skills, benefits and behaviors go home and should be saving you money if you implement them in your personal life. We pull the drapes in the summer about 3/4ths, so that our guests don’t walk into a heat-loaded room. In the winter, we may only have the sheers closed and the drapery open all the way. When we partner that with thermostat adjustments, that offers the greatest opportunities [for cost savings].” - Jasen Brown Plastic Reduction and #NoExcuseforSingleUse (13:00) “Our company doesn’t want any single-use product. We’re north of 95% (not quite 100%) in eliminating single-use plastics on property. Instead of plastic water bottles, our housekeeping will fill up glass bottles and deliver them to the room. In public spaces, we have bottle fillers.” - Jasen Brown Composting (18:10) “Composting has been a big push for everybody. It’s a huge opportunity. We have so much volume that we didn’t have enough footprint for a food digester… We put all the kitchen food scraps and all the compostable paper products (napkins, etc.) into the [organics] bin. Then Apex Waste Solutions comes three times a week.” - Jasen Brown Transportation CO2 (27:00) “There are groups that are very cognizant about this… There is still a lot of fear around EVs and battery life in the cold mountains… A mind shift is necessary.” Conserving Energy is Saving Money (29:50) Hotels and businesses need to conserve money as much as energy. This is a win-win. Nature Recovers Very Rapidly (31:08) “When we look back to Covid and we watched how greenhouse gases changed so much because we weren’t commuting all the time. That impact can be done very quickly if we change our behaviors at work, at home and in every one of our interactions.” - Jasen Brown Behavior Change is Free (32:33) “Behaviors are free. I do everything because it is part of my job. But if everyone learns those lessons, they can make money at home. Your paycheck isn’t going to change. But to go home and make some additional money through behaviors, that’s where the real victory is.” - Jasen Brown The $16-Dollar Home Electric Bill (34:00) “I have solar. For three months during the winter, I pay about $80/month. The rest of the year, I pay about $16/month. That’s because you have to stay connected to the grid.” - Jasen Brown Reduce Your Megawatt Usage Before You Get Your Solar Quote (36:00) “The first couple of winters, we were about $120/month and now we average about $65/month through the energy efficiency upgrades that I’ve made. - Jasen Brown Utilities that are Friendly to Solar and Others Who are Not (38:04) “It depends geographically where you are from. In the beginning of my career, nobody would have the conversation [about solar] because it was a 10–15-year payback. Then technology improved, so that you had a 7-10-year, and now it can be 3-7 years. Sometimes you have to march to the beat of your own drum and take that victory on your own.” - Jasen Brown Rooftop Solar as the Best Environmental Improvement (40:30) “If the utility would put solar on all residentials throughout a community, it would be the largest impact we could do and it could help all of the commercial buildings and have the most immediate impact on the environment.” - Jasen Brown Bottom Line As Jasen Brown notes, the top-down ethos is key. When the company leans into sustainability goals and challenges each team leader to come up with eco-efficiencies, then this is embedded in all of the boardroom and managerial conversations. (We’ve seen this time and again, and is profoundly exhibited in Damers First School, England’s most powerful green lobby – the 5-9-year-olds at that Poundbury, England school.) At the same time, staff training means that each member of the corporate family gets educated and can personally benefit from the cost-savings – in their own home and life.  The 21-Day Earth Gratitude Challenge features the Pachamama Alliance (indigenous rainforest guardians), Dr. Jane Goodall, WildlifeDirect (elephant and iconic animal conservation in Kenya), H.M. Queen Diambi (DRC), Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Ed Begley Jr., Common Ground, H.H. the Dalai Lama (among others), OceanGeneration and Dr. Bronner's (fair trade)? I encourage you to join us in 21 days of celebration, inspiration and transformation (free). Register now (at no cost) at EarthGratitude.org/2026. Tag Earth Gratitude as a collaborator or use #EarthGratitude, so that we can easily like and reshare select posts on Instagram and Facebook. We'd love to know your thoughts. The experts featured in the collage above are contributing to the Earth Gratitude Challenge and most are also featured in the Earth Gratitude docuseries. Check out the 5-part docuseries at EarthGratitude.org for information on:
Email [email protected] if you have any questions. The Earth Gratitude project features the world's most respected experts on conseravtion and sustainability, including H.M. King Charles III (when he was The Prince of Wales), H.H. The Dalai Lama, H.M. Queen Diambi, Sia, Ed Begley Jr., XPRIZE, Wangari Maathai, Elon Musk, Arianna Huffington, The Duchess of Northumberland, EARTHDAY.ORG, Ron Finley, the NRDC, Global Green, Lynne Twist, Green Our Planet, Life is Good, Master Sha, Leon Krier, Kiss the Ground, Nathalie Kelley, Alice Waters, The Edible Schoolyard Project, The Pachamama Alliance, WildlifeDirect and more.  Natalie Wynne Pace is the bestselling author of The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. The Power of 8 Billion has been number 1 in its vertical on Amazon every Earth Day since its publication in 2021.
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