Travelers to Denver, Colorado, will soon have the opportunity to spend the night in what promises to be “the first carbon positive hotel in America”. So say the creators behind Populus, a new 265-room, stylish, yet climate-conscious luxury hotel in the heart of the city.

Set to open in mid-October, the building is a striking addition to the city’s skyline – a sleek, three-corner structure built to resemble a grove of aspen trees, with each window shaped like the tree’s iconic “knots”. Its climate claims, too, are equally provocative. The hotel’s creators have promised to overcompensate for their emissions by a factor of 400% to 500%, through a combination of low-carbon construction, eco-friendly operations and a huge tree planting campaign throughout Colorado.

But when accounting for all of the waste, energy consumption and transportation of goods required of a luxury hotel with two restaurants – not to mention the fact that buildings alone account for 39% of greenhouse gas emissions – will your $300 to $500 purchase of a room at Populus really help fight climate change?

“There are a lot of layers to this,” says Joel Hartter, a University of Colorado Boulder environmental studies professor who specializes in corporate sustainability. “On paper, it looks great. But it would take a lot of research to verify those claims.”

“There are a lot of layers to this,” says Joel Hartter, a University of Colorado Boulder environmental studies professor who specializes in corporate sustainability. “On paper, it looks great. But it would take a lot of research to verify those claims.”

As a term, however, “carbon positive” can be linguistically confusing (“carbon negative” would be literally more accurate), and with no clear definition of what “carbon positive” means, there are no metrics by which to determine its validity.

Jon Buerge is the president of Urban Villages, the sustainable development company behind Populus. He defines carbon positive as “sequestering more carbon out of the atmosphere than would ever be emitted over the lifetime of the project”.

But just how much CO₂ emissions can you attribute to any one project? Hartter admits it’s a challenge.

“You have to account for several factors: direct emissions from the hotel itself, such as HVAC systems and company vans; emissions from purchased electricity that powers the building, including lighting, heating and cooling; and indirect emissions, like the transportation of goods, the carbon footprint of construction materials, waste disposal and guest travel. In this case, you must also consider site preparation, building materials, supply chains and everything brought into the hotel – from beds and furniture to TVs. You also have to think about the timescale over which offsetting occurs,” he explains. “It’s complex, and this is what many of the world’s largest companies are currently grappling with.”

Buerge is eager to unpack all the ways that Populus has reduced its carbon footprint both through the construction of the building – using recycled materials, low-carbon concrete and only 100% renewable energy in its operations.

“These goals led to some pretty unique approaches to hospitality,” says Buerge. “We decided not to have any onsite parking. One hundred per cent of our food products are sourced locally, and all food waste will be turned into compost and returned to those same farms.” He says the hotel also utilized eco-friendly materials such as beetle-kill wood, fly ash concrete (which emits far less carbon than traditional concrete, yet has never been used in a commercial building before) and leather made from reishi mushrooms.

“We’ve talked a lot about biophilic design, resembling nature,” says Buerge of the hotel’s interior. “It’s made to resemble a walk through the woods.”

However, it’s their promise to plant one spruce tree in Colorado for every guest that stays at Populus that their carbon positive balance sheet hinges upon. A decades-long beetle epidemic has destroyed millions of acres of trees throughout the US west, contributing to outbreaks of wildfires and devastating whole ecosystems. In pursuit of removing carbon from the atmosphere via new trees, Buerge collaborated with the US Forest Service, who directed them toward beetle-resistant spruce trees.

Buerge says they have already planted 70,000 spruce trees throughout Colorado’s National Wilderness Preservation System to offset emissions accrued in the building process of the hotel, with another 20,000 to be planted this year.

“We’re not just buying carbon credits, we’re not even just planting trees,” he says. “We’re reforesting Colorado forests.”

Jay Arehart, an architectural engineering professor at University of Colorado Boulder, has been following the Populus project for a long time and is impressed with its creators’ approach to a low-carbon development and the legitimacy of their ambitious offset goals, which he says are very rare in commercial real estate, since the construction of buildings comes with such a high carbon price tag.

“It’s a great pilot program that could definitely set a precedent,” he says. “When thinking about net-zero goals that companies might have – or are forced to have – this is a project we could point to as evidence that it can be done.”

While Hartter is cynical about companies over-relying on carbon offsets – it’s “like eating KFC every day, then paying someone in Florida to eat vegetables”, he says – he is optimistic about Urban Village’s new hotel. “They’re doing the right things: table-to-farm foods, solutions for waste, lining the sidewalks with trees, which will reduce heat.”

But, he warns, failure to live up to their claims could come back to bite them. “Millennials and gen Z often align their values to their pocketbooks, and their brand loyalty is based on a company’s sustainable values,” he says. “I really hope Populus’s aims stand up beyond just marketing.”

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Outdoor runners have always had a lot of data to juggle: their pace, heart-rate, mileage, route, calories, weather and much more. Though in recent years there’s been a new, considerably more ominous data point for alfresco athletes to monitor: the Air Quality Index (AQI).

The index, which measures the level of air pollution at any given time and location, is an increasingly necessary tool for outdoor enthusiasts in the age of climate change.

“If you’re a mountain runner, you’re checking the AQI daily,” says Avery Collins, a professional ultra-marathoner who lives in Silverton, Colorado. “Especially in the month of August.”

Denver, Colorado, where I live, is known as one of the fittest, healthiest places in the US, attracting a lot of runners, hikers, cyclists and climbers. I moved here from Iowa 20 years ago and have been an avid runner in the city and mountains for more than a decade.

But Denver also often has the worst air pollution in the country, and sometimes the most polluted of any international city in the world, thanks to a perfect storm of factors that, throughout much of the summer, make the city unhealthy to exercise in. The natural “runner’s high” that I – and scores of other Denver runners – pursue, can be tainted when breathing deeply in polluted air, leaving my lungs heavy, throat scorched and head dizzy, like I just spent the last hour sucking on the tailpipe of a big-rig truck.

This is, in part, due to the wildfires currently blazing around nearly half of North America. But it’s also a larger and more structural environmental problem that goes back further than this summer alone.

A meteorological phenomenon called the “inversion effect” (where cold air on the ground gets trapped by a layer of warm air above it) prevents Denver air pollution from drifting into the sky, which wasn’t as much of a problem before Denver’s population boom led to stagnant traffic jams. Forest fire smoke also gets trapped, blanketing the city in a thick fog, turning the sun orange and the nearby mountains invisible.

And the nearby Suncor oil refinery just last week agreed to a $10.5m settlement with Colorado for spewing illegal pollutants into the air, the largest environmental fine in state history.

I hate running on treadmills – especially when some of the best parks in the US are right outside my door – but throughout much of the summer I am greeted by an Air Quality Alert on my iPhone every morning, and then have a difficult choice to make.

Running in Denver – especially during wildfire season – often leaves me with a sore throat, headache, dizziness and brain fog. I haven’t had a cigarette in eight years, but feel like I binged a whole carton after running through the Mars-like orange haze of the city during an Air Quality Alert.

While some pro runners like Avery Collins say the Air Quality Index is essential for training (opting for a treadmill run or another indoor workout on bad days), a few Denver runners I spoke with would rather not let air pollution stop them from enjoying their run.

“In these times, you have to pick your poison,” says Kelly Waldo, who runs about 25-30 miles (40-48km) in Denver each week. “I am aware of [the air pollution], but I still just put my shoes on and get after it.”

Waldo adds that he had bronchitis as a kid, and does sometimes get headaches after a long run. While he doesn’t check the AQI, he does keep his runs at 5am, before the morning rush hour begins.

“You can see how polluted it is, especially in the last 10 years,” Waldo says. “It’s mind-boggling that we rank up there with India. But who wants to run on a treadmill?”

“I don’t think about air quality,” says Frank Anello, a Denver ultramarathon runner who just completed a 200-mile race through the mountains. “I don’t care. Nothing’s gonna stop me from running.”

Studies have shown air pollution to have a negative effect on athletic performance – both physically and mentally – as well as a number of health risks (such as lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory issues and even dementia), according to the Environmental Protection Agency and American Lung Association, which recommend limiting outdoor activity when an Air Quality Alert has been announced.

“I have such a crazy addiction to running, I can’t be concerned with air quality,” says Anello. “Same with blizzards or downpouring rain, freezing cold or blistering heat – I’m getting my miles.”

I can relate to Anello who, like myself, struggled with addictions to a variety of substances years ago, and found running to be a less destructive way to deal with those madcap impulses.

I wrote a book on this topic a few years back, and spoke with a variety of ultra-runners who hoofed thousands of miles not for the health benefits, or in pursuit of physical beauty or a longer lifespan, but because it got them off drugs and alcohol. “This is the new way to live crazy,” one of them told me.

Running through toxic air – and dealing with the physical side effects – is certainly crazy, but that’s the mentality of a hardcore runner. Nothing will stand between us and a runner’s high.

So even though my iPhone attempts to grab my attention with an Air Quality Alert – and the Rocky mountains, typically visible from my balcony window, are shrouded in a London-esque fog – I too lace up my shoes and, like Kelly Waldo, “get after it”.

Denver officials have pointed toward plans on the horizon to tackle air pollution, including stricter controls on pollutants like benzene, but those won’t make a difference anytime soon.

In the meantime, I jog through the sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide spewed out by the Suncor refinery. Through polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from the wildfire smoke. Through the nitrogen dioxide, benzene and formaldehyde emanating from rush-hour traffic.

I know I’ll be paying for this – both in the short and long term – but it still beats a treadmill. Or, even worse, even more unthinkable, no run at all.

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