By Peo Akesson of Sustainable Cards LLC, today’s guest blogger

In 2005, I was traveling through Sweden and stayed at a Scandic Hotel. The stay was pleasant, as always, but what really caught my eye was a wooden key card handed to me at check-in. I used the card through my entire stay and really felt proud of my Swedish heritage because this Scandanavian brand used (and, as I learned, have been using for over 5 years) such a uniquely green concept at all of their properties.

I felt compelled to bring the same concept back to the United States upon my return. I tracked down the producer of the wooden key cards, Johan Motensson, in his small wood shop in Hede, Sweden. Together Johan and I formed EcoCard LLC, and soon added Greg Hartmann, Managing Director of HVS, the largest hotel consulting firm in the world, who shared my enthusiasm and joined our team.

Since 2006 we have learned that the wooden card is not only unique and great looking, but is far more environmentally friendly than PVC, biodegradable PVC, corn-cards or even recycled plastic or paper cards. We’ve spent the last two years searching for the best partners we could find to bring these sustainably forested birch wood cards to market.

The result is the most environmentally friendly, low cost, and high quality wooden key cards available today. We formally changed our name to Sustainable Cards LLC this year. The response by individual hotel operators and hotel brands alike has been overwhelming. Our launch at the upcoming Democratic National Convention, where Denver hotels will be issuing over 70,000 Sustainable Cards, is extremely exciting. This will be the first time wood key cards have been used in the U.S. We are blown away by the media interest the cards have generated. One example is a local NBC affiliate whose segment is now posted in multiple places on MSNBC.com. It proves to us that small steps to protect the environment have a large impact on people.

If hotels would switch from the current PVC plastic cards to wood cards, we would eliminate over 1,300 tons of plastic waste – that’s equal to the volume of seven 777 airplanes. Obviously, that impacts our environment. The bottom line is that we aim to do whatever we can to reduce the vast amount of waste generated by non-recyclable plastic in order to protect the environment. These hotel key cards are just the start.

Editor’s note: Peo Akesson is the Chairman and Founder of Sustainable Cards LLC.  If you are interested in learning more about the company, Mr. Akesson welcomes e-mails at peo@sustainablecards.com.

The views expressed above are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent The Element Agency. If you are interested in penning guest posts for My Green Element, please email Stefan Deeran via stefan@theelementagency.com.