It's been a long time since the sustainability ceased to be a fashion or trend to become a fundamental pillar of the trip: we want sustainable hotels.
Travelers are not only looking for a city with history, a well located hotel or the restaurant that is on everyone's lips; also we want our experience to be as sustainable as possible , in a way that respects the environment and leaves the smallest footprint.
That's why Google just launched a new feature: from now on, when we use your hotel search tool, we will find information about their sustainability practices (such as the environmental certifications it has, the use of water audited by an independent organization or the use of energy from carbon-free sources).
Thus, Google will label sustainable hotels as 'Eco-Certificates' in global search results, with a leaf-shaped emblem next to the name of the hotel, which confirms that “the establishment has received environmental sustainability certification from an independent organization recognized by Google”.
“More and more people want to travel in a more sustainable way and look for ecological services, so we have recently begun to facilitate the search for planet-friendly options”, they point out in the Google blog.
The new feature is based on 28 certification programs to establish green credibility of a hotel and will be the staff of the establishment and not the search engine, who updates the hotel certifications, using the free Google My Business profile, as reported by the Spanish startup ECO-ONE specialized in hotel sustainability.
Google will identify sustainable hotels
SUSTAINABILITY TERMS
As the tool itself explains, “because the sustainability terms can have multiple meanings, we share more context for some sustainability practices.”
Thus, Google uses the following terms and definitions to align the sustainability practices of hotels: energy from carbon-free sources, locally sourced food and beverages, organic eggs, amenities Organic, responsibly sourced seafood.
Among the most notable certifications that Google will recognize, it stands out Green Key, Leed, Green Seal and Green Globe , as well as other relatively new ones such as the standard Green Growth 2050 Standard , which since 2015 has measured hotels and resorts on 200 metrics related to sustainability.