How Are Hotels Embracing Sustainability in 2025?

What attracts travelers to a given hotel? For some, it might be certain amenities; for others, getting good value for your dollar (or pound, or Euro) is what matters. Last year, a trends report from Hilton noted that different travelers are often looking for very different things: one might want nothing more than to relax, while another may prefer to be immersed in the everyday life of a given location.

An ecologically-friendly hotel never hurts, either; having a sense that one is minimizing one’s impact on the environment is a plus for many travelers, whether they’re on the road for business or personal reasons. In an article for Hotels, Tatiana Valenzuela explored the case of GHL Hoteles, a hospitality company based in Colombia with locations in 10 countries across Latin America.

Valenzuela’s article cites the head of HR for GHL Hoteles, Sandra Zapata, who stated that the company has a goal of being carbon-neutral by 2035. To that end, the company’s carbon footprint dropped by 6.18% over the course of 2024. What is potentially most interesting about GHL’s announcement is the company’s pursuit of outside certification when applicable. GHL noted that one of its properties, Bogotá’s BIOHOTEL Organic Suites, was cited by Case Western Reserve University’s Aim2Flourish initiative for its sustainability efforts.

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Some hospitality companies have put sustainability at the core of their business model, including the resort company Beyond Green, which added six new properties to its lineup earlier this year. Since 2021, Google has offered in-depth information on the ecological friendliness of the hotels in its listings, and sustainability concerns have also led to fewer plastic key cards being in use. Some steps are bigger than others, but it’s welcome to see companies making the effort.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…