When Las Vegas casinos see green today, it’s more than just money
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Workers Rigoberto Nieto-Gutierrez, left, and Angelica Aguilar fish out plastic bottles, cans and other recyclables from trash at the Caesars Palace recycling dock Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021.
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021 | 2 a.m.
At a loading dock in the bowels of Caesars Palace, workers sift through bags of trash as they look for recyclable items.
Crews work around the clock fishing out plastic bottles, cans and other recyclables from the mountains of trash — nearly 20 tons on a busy weekend.
“I don’t think many people think there would be a 24/7 operation on the docks here where people are just sorting materials,” said Eric Dominguez, senior vice president for engineering and asset management at Caesars.
The job is centered on limiting what eventually goes to landfills.
According to Caesars Entertainment’s 2020-21 sustainability report, the company’s properties in Las Vegas and elsewhere divert about 45% of all waste from landfills.
In 2020, Caesars’ eight resorts on the Las Vegas Strip recycled close to 40 million pounds of materials, even though they were closed for more than two months during the pandemic.
Companies like Caesars, MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts help to make the Strip a collective leader in sustainability and renewable energy.
From solar energy to recycling to water conservation, resort operators have bought in.
“People don’t get it because Las Vegas is a place of excess,” Dominguez said. “In (Nevada), we’re approaching 30% of all of our energy use being renewable energy. We have more LEED buildings on the Strip than maybe anywhere else in the world.”
LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is a green ratings system used for buildings by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Caesars, like Wynn Resorts, has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2050. MGM has set a 2025 target for a 45% reduction in carbon emissions per square foot compared to 2007.
Before the pandemic, Caesars opened a Tesla electric vehicle “supercharging” station with room for two-dozen vehicles near its LINQ Promenade.
Earlier this year, MGM introduced a 640-acre solar farm about 45 minutes north of the Strip expected to supply up to 90% of the daytime energy needs for the company’s eight Las Vegas resorts.
“Las Vegas’ resort industry has invested millions of dollars into responsible operations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, carbon emissions, waste, single-use plastics and water consumption,” said Virginia Valentine, president and CEO of the Nevada Resort Association.
“Nevada’s resort industry is a world-class leader in sustainability, environmental protection and renewable energy development,” Valentine said.
This year, Newsweek called Caesars Entertainment, which operates more than 50 resorts, “one of America’s most responsible companies.”
Being a good steward of the environment makes sense from a business standpoint.
In addition to saving money, environmentally sustainable companies have an edge in recruiting the best talent, said Wendy Bagnasco, senior manager of environmental and social governance and responsible business for Caesars.
As a millennial, Bagnasco said, she and others in her age group tend to place a high degree of importance on environmental issues.
“Millennials and Generation Z, we care a lot about the environment,” Bagnasco said. “As an employer, we think about our brand and what we stand for. People want to work for a company that espouses their same values in these areas. We can say that we’re a green company and that helps to attract and retain talent.”
One of Bagnasco’s favorite programs is one that Caesars has in partnership with a foundation called Clean the World. Together, they supplied over 3 million bars of soap to disadvantaged places around the world.
Leftover soap is collected by housekeepers when they clean hotel rooms. Those materials are then combined, sanitized, and made into new bars of soap.
“When team members are cleaning out a guest room, just taking that split second to collect those soaps instead of throwing them away, that makes a difference,” Bagnasco said.
“Everyone has a busy life and not everybody has time to go volunteer for a cause,” she said. “Something like that is small, but it’s built into their job and they can feel good about it.”
