When is a hotel really green?
By Amanda Kendle on Monday, May 12th, 2008

I like to consider myself environmentally aware and I try to “do the right thing” when I can. Travelling, of course, is an activity that often has a big carbon footprint and as travel consumers it’s not always easy to know the best way to be green when we’re taking a trip.

When is a hotel really green?

Some airlines or tour companies provide options to buy carbon offsets or do it themselves as part of the package, and a number of hotels claim to be green and, increasingly, carbon-neutral too. What really frustrates me, though, is that because there’s not yet a useful standard for saying a service or product is “green”, a lot of companies advertise how green they are.

As consumers we don’t really know if that’s true.

A lot of hotels throw words like “green” around just because they give you a choice about whether or not you want your towels washed every day. As another example, I saw a hotel in Costa Rica recently which advertises “green” package holidays.

From the package name alone, I might choose that over another similar hotel product just because I want to help the environment. When you look into the details, however, the only vaguely green thing about the package was an included day trip to various natural sites, but without any particular environmental awareness, carbon offsetting or anything.

That makes me mad. So until we have a reliable way to measure how green a hotel or tour is, what can we do? Is it mostly a matter of word of mouth feedback to establish which hotels really do act in green, responsible ways?


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8 responses to “When is a hotel really green?”

Jack | 13 May, 2008 at 3:14 pm

It seems that greenwash is as common with travel companies as it is with energy companies.

I think it’s best to take any claim from a hotel about their eco-credentials with a pinch of salt. After all, to be really green they’d need to use all ecological cleaning products, clean less, use timers and low energy bulbs, make sure TVs are off unless used… the list gets very long.

Yes, I’m a cynic :-)

Darren Cronian | 14 May, 2008 at 12:44 pm

@ Jack

Yep, I’m a cynic too. I think hotels are the worst for being green and environmentally friendly, especially where lights, and televisions etc. are concerned.

Luke Gardiner | 14 May, 2008 at 1:06 pm

We have recently returned from a so called environmentally friendly house in Costa Rica which was anything but environmentally friendly.

It was made out of Bamboo but that’s about as environmentally friendly as it was.

Amanda Kendle | 14 May, 2008 at 1:13 pm

@Luke, yes this stuff seems to be particularly rife in Costa Rica! And sometimes it’s really hard to figure out in advance if the green marketing is real or not … hopefully it will improve in future years.

Soultravelers3 | 16 May, 2008 at 5:54 pm

We stayed at a small green hotel in Morocco that seemed to walk it’s talk. It was built by a German who has a real passion for the topic and I was impressed with what she had done.

She used all organic materials in building it, they use solar power, have a connected organic restaurant and hamman. She was an organic farmer for many years and is working with the community in the area in supporting their organic farms.

http://www.soultravelers3.com/2007/04/lalla-mira-hamm.html#more

I read reviews like this that convinced me to try it:

http://www.naturallymorocco.co.uk/Brochures/Brochure_Essaouira_Lalla_Mira_Eco_Hotel.php?pid=210

It was not the prettiest place that we stayed at in Morocco, but it was lovely.

I would certainly support more lovely places that did this kind of thing.

We also stayed at The Post Ranch in which was one of the nicest places we ever stayed. It is hard to say how green it was, but it was definitely green and quite spectacular and is very popular:

http://www.postranchinn.com/

Tess | 16 May, 2008 at 7:41 pm

Hello,

This blog was interesting reading and it gave me the idea to ask for your recommendations around “eco-friendly”, “green”, “responsible tourism” etc.

We’re about to renovate/build a luxury floating hotel (houseboat / boatel) on the Chobe River, Namibia/Botswana. Since we have 100% control over the construction the aim is to make sure that we build it as environmental friendly as possible with the long-term usage in mind all the way.

Let me know your thoughts around what you concider being eco-friendly. Do you have resources online that I can take a look at as well, please let me know. It can definitely spark an interesting discussion…

Thank you in advance.
- Tess

Darren Cronian | 17 May, 2008 at 5:24 am

@ Soultravelers

It’s good to read and see examples where a hotel is really environmentally friendly, rather tha a hotel which uses the environment as it’s marketing tactic when it clearly isn’t.

@ Jess

I would have a read of the comments here and also visit the links in the comments above to get some examples.

p.s. I had to delete your web address from the blog post

Tamara | 20 May, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Greenwash, eco-lip service and token environmental efforts are sadly endemic in the hotel industry. So many places seem to think that eco-tourism is synonymous with ‘animal photo opportunities’, and operate eco-tours that are nothing of the sort. So many so-called ‘green’ hotels think that a sustainable tourism policy can be limited to ‘not washing towels’, and call themselves eco-friendly when they’re about as environmentally sound as the Manhattan Project. Until global best practice standards are adopted, and the hum of eco-buzzwords dies down, it will be very difficult to tell the difference between greenwash and hogwash.

Having said all that, however, there are hotels out there that have a genuine and demonstrable commitment to the environment.

Firstly, Tiamo in the Bahamas. This little resort is miles from anywhere, powered exclusively by eco-electricity (it has the largest solar field in Central/South America), eschews TV, phones and the ilk, produces its own food, and uses water and baking soda as its cleaning products.

http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/caribbean-hotels/bahamas-hotels/tiamo-resort/

And secondly, Nihiwatu on the Indonesian island of Sumba, is similarly isolated, and about as back-to-nature as you can get. It’s built entirely from locally sourced materials, and staff are strongly involved in conserving the local island forests.

http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/indonesia-hotels/sumba-hotels/nihiwatu

These are two of the most sincerely green hotels we have found, but I anticipate that there’ll be more and more as time goes on. Of course, there’s always the issue of the effects of air travel to discuss…

Tamara (online director) Mr & Mrs Smith

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