Environmental labels transparently communicate ecological footprint of hotels in France
What is the environmental impact of a hotel? Guests at a growing number of hotels in France and Morocco are now able to see quantified information of the hotel’s ecological footprint through environmental displays. This initiative is led by the French Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, with the support of ADEME (Agency for the Environment and Energy Management).
The labelling initiative aims to transparently communicate and summarize the main environmental impacts of hotels with an in fine suggested environmental footprint action plan to reduce these impacts and the operating costs. The left side of the label presents the hotel’s environmental rating, ranging from A to E, based on an audit carried out by Betterfly Tourism. The right side shows the hotel’s impacts on climate change, water consumption, resource consumption and use of organic products, on a scale ranging from “Low impact” to “Major impact”. Below the label, the hotel reaffirms its environmental commitment, highlighting green actions already in place as well as plans in line for implementation. Currently, the online booking site Fairbooking.com works alongside the project to provide customers with a green search engine featuring the environmental displays. To date, this pioneering project of the French Government has been deployed across 80 hotels in France and three hotels in Morocco. Looking ahead, 120 more French hotels are in line to be part of the initiative by the end of 2018.
