VENDOR PROFILE: LEEDing by Example
by Marian Green
September 1, 2008
‘People are showing how they can save money and reduce impact on the environment at the same time so it’s not a lot of theory. It’s now actually sometime that can be put into practice, and you can measure the good that you are doing’ – Landmade
Purchasing Management International is helping to take the guesswork out of going green
Going green may be
the right thing to do to become more environmentally responsible. But today’s
hotel-casino operators also must pay close attention to the fiscal bottom line.
Happily, the two in many cases are
not mutually exclusive, and going green in some cases can even be less
expensive than non-green alternatives, according to William Langmade, the
founder and president of Dallas-based Purchasing Management International, one
of the leading hospitality procurement companies in the world. The company has
globally sourced and procured more than $1.5 billion in hotel, resort and
casino furnishings, operating equipment and systems and construction materials.
As interest in green initiatives has increased, PMI has
focused on becoming more educated in that area. Langmade went through a
certification process to become a LEED accredited professional. LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the U.S. Green Building
Council’s rating system to recognize environmentally healthy quality standards
in sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection,
and indoor environmental quality.
PMI helps educate clients about the benefits of
recycling during renovations while staying abreast of myriad green product
available for a reasonable cost. The company strives to buy products from
environmentally sensitive factories worldwide, reduce the impact of
transporting items and to cut the amount of packaging waste or divert that
waste from our landfills through recycling.
Besides its green expertise, PMI has other strengths
that bring hotel and gaming operators through its doors, including its ability
to source worldwide for products and its expertise in project management.
“Worldwide sourcing is an extremely important value that
a purchasing agent brings to the process just
because it’s a global marketplace that we deal with in today’s world,” he said.
“In the gaming world, most of our clients have internal purchasing departments,
but yet we still do most of their projects, and the reason is that what we do
is project-oriented, versus purchasing day-to-day linens, or food and beverage
or replenishable items. What we do is very specific to a project, a timeline, a
budget, and most people don’t have that expertise in house and that’s why we
get hired.”
Langmade noted that the company started in Dallas in 1993 and over
time has become one of the largest volume purchasing and procurement firms in
the country. “And the number one thing that we focus on is the gaming
industry,” Langmade said.
He noted PMI’s first project in the gaming
industry was a 1,100-room tower at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. “We finished that, and then all of
a sudden, we’ve been having our door knocked down, and we’ve been very
fortunate to list with all of the major hotel companies in Las Vegas and outside of Vegas,” he said,
citing Harrah’s Entertainment, Boyd Gaming, MGM Mirage and Isle of Capri as
just a sampling of PMI’s clients.
Today, almost half of PMI’s client base comes from the
gaming industry, from major players on down. More and more clients are becoming
interested in LEED, not necessarily to be green, but to meet the increasingly
required standards by cities and state governments.
“There is a bit
of a disconnect between what is said and what is really done on FF&E. If
you are a LEED certified building, FF&E [furniture, fixtures and equipment]
really doesn’t affect a LEED certification to any great degree at this time,”
Langmade said.
He said a company may be able get
extra points for its LEED rating by recycling trash like cardboard and carpet.
But for the most part, “for the companies that say ‘We have a true green DNA,’
most of the time what they’re talking about is on the operational side, not on
the renovation side.”
And some aren’t quite on board the
green train yet. “We have had clients where we have said we can recycle all of
your carpet in your building, and they say, “we don’t want to hear about it; we
just want to get this thing done, so if the contractor picks up that carpet and
takes it away, that’s all we care about,’” Langmade said.
So PMI goes directly to the contractor and offers the
contractor a way to save time and money taking the carpet to the dump.
“We say, ‘If you bring the carpet to the dock, I’ll arrange to have
someone pick it up and you don’t have to drive it to the dump and pay the dump
fees or I’ll introduce you to someone who will take it. That has been occurring
now for the last 12 months for us on a regular basis, and they [the
contractors] love it. And it’s not a green thing to them; it’s a money thing.”
Marian Green
greenm@bnpmedia.com
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