Orlando Hotelier Harris Rosen Receives Legacy Award from Sustainable Florida for his Industry-Leading Green Efforts and Care for Community

Rosen Given Top Honors for His “Incredible Impact on State and Beyond”

For more information, contact: Mary Deatrick DPR
(407) 332-5212 mary@deatrickpr.com
Photography available at http://www.rosenhotels.com/media

ORLANDO (June 18, 2009) – Orlando hotelier Harris Rosen was recently honored with a Legacy Award, Sustainable Florida’s highest honor, during the organization’s 11th Annual Best Practices Awards held at Rosen Shingle Creek on June 9, 2009.

 

Sustainable Florida, a program of the Collins Center, is a public-private alliance of organizations and businesses that promote sustainable best management practices — those which protect and preserve Florida's environment while building markets for Florida's businesses by enhancing their competitive advantages today — through collaborative educational efforts throughout Florida.

 

Nearly 80 Best Practices nominees, including city and county governments, businesses and individuals, vied for wins in seven categories, with the Legacy Award presented as the finale of the program. This marks only the third year that the Legacy Award has been presented in the awards’ 11 year history. The previous two winners included Clyde Butcher, known as Florida’s Ansel Adams and a member of the Florida Artist Hall of Fame, and the Babcock Ranch collaborative partnership lead by Kitson and Partners along with two counties and five state agencies.

 

According to Tim Center, Vice President of Sustainable Florida, the Legacy Award is presented “to a unique one-of-a-kind individual, initiative or collaborative project” and “one of the major criteria regarding judging the nominations is the ability to replicate the project.”  Rosen was recognized by the organization for “operating a business for the betterment of the triple bottom line – economically, environmentally and socially.”

 

Center cited Rosen Hotels & Resorts’ eco-friendly and conservation efforts, as well as Harris Rosen’s ground-breaking medical care program for hotel associates, his multi-million dollar charitable gifts, his philosophy of operating his business free from debt (with all seven hotels paid in full) and other example-setting corporate social responsibility programs.

 

Stated Center, “Sometimes you come across an individual who stands out more than any other… Who is not only committed to creating a more sustainable Florida, but has made an incredible impact in our state and beyond. It is why we created the Sustainable Florida Legacy Award and it is why we are pleased to honor Mr. Harris Rosen.”

 

As well as Harris Rosen’s Legacy Award, Rosen Hotels & Resorts was also a finalist in the Large Business division of the Best Practices Awards.

 

This is not the first time Rosen Hotels & Resorts has been lauded for its conservation efforts. Because they had already “gone green” before it became fashionable to do so, Rosen’s three Orlando convention properties — Rosen Centre, Rosen Plaza and Rosen Shingle Creek — were the first hotels in Central Florida to achieve Two Palm status in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Lodging Program, and were numbers 8, 9 and 10, among only 11 total Two Palm hotels in the state of Florida. The three hotels were among the first 50 properties — the top one percent in Florida — to receive One Palm designation in 2007. The newly achieved Two Palm designation certifies that the hotels have increased energy conservation and pollution prevention measures since their One Palm certification just over a year ago.

 

Together, the three Rosen convention hotels offer the largest number of guestrooms, largest combined square feet of meeting/event space and closest proximity to the Orange County Convention Center of any Orlando convention hotels. Combined, they offer more than 3,600 rooms and more than 611,000 square feet of flexible meeting space and one of the nation’s largest column-free ballrooms. An award-winning championship 18-hole golf course and golf academy, world-class spas, nearly two dozen dining, entertainment and lounging options, state-of-the-art fitness centers, a variety of tennis and sport courts, provide meetings attendees and leisure guests unparalleled convenience and amenities.

 

For more information about Rosen Hotels & Resorts, visit www.rosenhotels.com. For more information about Sustainable Florida, visit www.sustainableflorida.org or www.collinscenter.org.