Google Is Now Helping Travelers Go Green

Half added that finding a hotel with actual eco credibility isn’t easy—and they’re right. Hotels that take sustainability seriously don’t often shout it from the rooftops, while others tout themselves as green just for offering an option to skip daily laundering of linen.

The most significant new tool comes courtesy of Google. Starting on Sept. 22, it will label hotels as “Eco-Certified” in global search results, with a leaf-shaped icon next to the hotel’s name. Clicking on the “About” tab will detail the property’s specific sustainability practices, such as having water use audited by an independent organization or using energy from carbon-free sources. 

The new feature relies on 29 certification programs to do the hard work of establishing a hotel’s green credibility; the property must have an array of sustainability measures audited by third-party experts. It’ll be up to hotel staff, rather than the search engine, to update hotel listings, using the free Google My Business Profile.

The move is intended to offer travelers more transparency against greenwashing, which runs rampant in the hospitality industry. It also responds to increased search volume around eco-travel buzz words. The term “green hotel,” for instance, has quadrupled in search volume since March 2020, according to Google Trends. 

“We’ve worked in close collaboration with hotels to learn more about how they're approaching sustainability and how to best represent these different approaches within our product,” says Richard Holden, Google’s VP of product management. “Standardization will be key in getting consumers to understand, trust, and take action based on the sustainability information we provide.”

The New Green Standards

Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), which provides accreditation for certification bodies.

What Google won’t show are programs with only self-reported environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data such as investment firm CGI Merchant Group’s new Conscious Certified Hotels program, which donates 1% of room night revenue at select Hilton hotels to local organizations. Such internal sustainability initiatives as Iberostar Hotels & Resorts’ Wave of Change program, which is working toward various goals that include being waste-free by 2025 and carbon-neutral by 2030, also won’t count toward getting an “eco certified” check.

Other Ways to Find Sustainable Hotels

“Hotels are realizing they need a label,” says Hans Pfister, co-founder and president of the Cayuga Collection, a group of sustainable lodges that were among the first to earn certifications from the famously eco-conscious government  in Costa Rica. “But there’s a difference between putting a certification on your website and actually walking the walk.”

Instead of spending hours on the paperwork necessary to maintain certifications, Pfister felt energy could be better directed toward new initiatives that enrich local communities and the guest experience. A stay at his private island resort Isla Palenque in Panama could include foraging through 400 acres of protected rainforest for wild ingredients with a local guide or learning traditional fishing techniques preserved by the fishermen of Boca Chica.

A handful of new tools beyond Google can help make it easier to find and book hotels with strong social and environmental values such as Pfister’s. 

319 tourism companies, organizations, and individuals have united for Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, a coalition whose members commit to developing action plans to cut their carbon emissions in half by 2030. Hotel groups including Banyan Tree, Accor, and Iberostar Hotels & Resorts have joined Expedia Group and Unesco in the expansion of the Unesco Sustainable Travel Pledge, which encourages signees to eliminate single-use plastics and support local economies and cultures.

Prince Harry has rallied some of the biggest travel brands—including Booking.com, Skyscanner, Tripadvisor, and Visa—to form a think tank on sustainable initiatives called Travalyst, which Google is also joining. As part of the group, the search titan will help develop a standardized way to calculate carbon emissions for air travel and align its new hotel features with Travalyst’s criteria for sustainable accommodations. 2018 study

“It stands to reason that in the context of Covid, people are taking more time to consider what they value in terms of travel and how that impacts the world at large,” says Google’s Holden. “As the travel industry recovers, hotels that can demonstrate a meaningful commitment to sustainability will be well-positioned to meet this growing interest from consumers.”

(Update adds Richard Holden interview in sixth and last paragraphs. )

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