The Eco-Friendly Hotels Guide: A 2026 Playbook for UK Hoteliers

An eco-friendly hotel is one that has reduced its environmental impact more than the average hotel and can provide evidence of this. The keyword is proof. A hotel that has swapped its light bulbs and put a card by the towel rail is not, by today’s standards, eco-friendly. It is just not as far behind as it used to be.

According to the CMA Green Claims Code, a claim like “eco-friendly” needs three things to be credible:

• Measurement: You know your starting-point figures for energy, water and carbon
• Action: You have made real changes based on those figures
• Verification: An outside body has confirmed both

Take away any one of those three, and you have a marketing claim, not an environmental one.

Certifications that provide that outside proof in the UK include Green Tourism, EarthCheck, ISO 14001, and the EU Ecolabel for Tourist Accommodation. For products you buy, such as toiletries, cleaning supplies and paper, look for Cradle to Cradle Certified, Nordic Swan Ecolabel, EcoCert Cosmos Organic, and Fairtrade.

Going green is no longer about image. It is about your bills, your legal risk, and whether guests can find you.

The Climate Change Act 2008 commits the UK to net zero by 2050. The UK Net Zero Strategy breaks that down into targets for every industry. Hotels account for up to 15% of UK greenhouse gas emissions and spend £1.3 billion a year on energy. Those costs will not come down on their own.

Two laws are already costing hotels money:

• The Plastic Packaging Tax applies to packaging that contains less than 30% recycled material.
• The Single-Use Plastics ban goes further by outright banning certain items in hospitality.

Guest behaviour is shifting too. Three in four travellers say they want to travel more sustainably, and 83% say sustainability matters to them.

For bookings, the numbers are just as striking: 65% say they would feel better staying at a certified property, and 59% want to filter their search results by sustainability certification. Certification is shifting from a badge on a wall to a search filter. If you do not have it, you may not show up.

There is a UK-specific issue that makes this even more pressing:

• 80.5% of UK hotel stays are single-night stays, one of the highest rates among the countries studied.
• More one-night stays mean more check-ins and check-outs, more laundry, more restocking, and more energy spent heating rooms that were empty the night before.
• UK hotels produce more carbon per booking than hotels in countries where guests stay longer.

In short: UK hotels face pressure from three sides at once: tightening laws, rising energy costs, and guests who now filter searches by sustainability certification.

According to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol, a net-zero hotel is one where the greenhouse gases it produces are fully balanced by an equivalent amount removed from the atmosphere. The total carbon added to the air is zero. But that only means something when you know which parts of the business are counted.

The GHG Protocol divides emissions into three groups called scopes:

Two other terms worth knowing:

• Carbon neutral usually means that any remaining emissions, after cuts have been made, are offset by buying carbon credits.
• Whole-life net zero includes the carbon produced when the building was constructed, not just the carbon used to run it day-to-day.

Three recent examples show what net zero looks like when it is actually done.

Radisson Hotel Manchester City Centre

Radisson Hotel Manchester City Centre was one of the first two hotels in Radisson Hotel Group’s Verified Net Zero programme, launched in May 2025. To qualify, a hotel must run on 100% renewable energy, serve low-carbon food, and keep waste to a minimum. All three emission scopes are checked by an independent body.

room2 Chiswick

room2 Chiswick calls itself the world’s first whole-life net-zero carbon “hometel”, a mix of hotel and apartment. It was built to use 89% less energy than a typical UK hotel, and the carbon produced during construction was counted from day one.

voco Zeal Exeter Science Park

voco Zeal Exeter Science Park opened in March 2025 as IHG’s first net-zero hotel in the UK, with 142 rooms. Here is what makes it stand out:

• Holds BREEAM Outstanding certification
• Built to the Passivhaus standard
• Energy Use Intensity of less than 60 kWh per square metre
• Uses CO₂ heat pumps with a global warming potential of just 1
• Its concrete mix, Ecocrete, produces up to 85% less CO₂ than standard cement

All three properties have something in common. None of them just claims to be green. All three are measured and checked against clear technical standards.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the UK’s regulator for fair trading and consumer protection. In 2021, it published the Green Claims Code, which sets six rules for any green claim made by a UK business.

Every green claim must be:

• Truthful and accurate
• Clear and easy to understand
• Not leaving out important information
• Fair when making comparisons
• Based on the full life of the product or service
• Backed up with solid, up-to-date evidence

Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has given the CMA the power to fine businesses up to £300,000, or 10% of their global annual turnover, for misleading green claims.

Write down everything, only claim what you can prove, and make the evidence easy to find.

In short: Vague green claims now come with real fines in the UK. Name the certification. Show the numbers. Keep everything up to date.

Knowing where costs are highest is the first step to bringing them down.

Recommended room temperatures:

Heating rooms above these temperatures, which many hotels do in winter, is a direct and avoidable cost.

The bathroom is worth a close look. Showers use more hot water than any other use in a guest room. Mini-bottles and individually wrapped products are the biggest sources of single-use plastic. Towel and linen changes drive both water use and the amount of laundry chemicals used.

Follow these 7 steps for building a greener future in UK hospitality and delivering a genuinely sustainable guest experience.

1. Find Out Where You Are Starting From

You cannot cut what you have not measured, and you cannot defend a claim you have not checked.

The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative (HCMI), run by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, is the standard tool for calculating your scope 1 and 2 emissions, plus some scope 3 areas such as outsourced laundry.

Run an energy, water and waste audit every year and measure it against a fixed starting point. Without that, any claim you make is a guess.

2. Switch to Renewable Energy and Cut Your Heating Costs

Switching to a 100% renewable electricity tariff backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs) deals with your scope 2 emissions.

Cutting your heating costs is harder. Most UK hotels still run on gas boilers, and replacing them costs money. The most common route is to install air-source or ground-source heat pumps, ideally alongside better insulation.

3. Use Less Hot Water

Hot water made up about a fifth of total energy use in IHG’s UK hotel study. Bathrooms, kitchens and laundry are where most of that goes, and all three are worth looking at.

Under the EU Ecolabel for Tourist Accommodation, taps and showerheads should flow at no more than 9 litres per minute. Low-flow showerheads, thermostatic taps and enclosed shower screens can all make a real difference.

4. Cut Food Waste

UK hospitality throws away food that costs the industry around £3.2 billion a year. That food has already used energy, water and packaging to produce, move and store.

• Order food in smaller, more regular amounts to reduce spoilage
• Adjust portion sizes based on what guests actually eat
• Offer takeaway boxes for unfinished meals
• Use refillable containers at breakfast for cereals, jams and yoghurt
• Track food waste daily with the free Guardians of Grub calculator

5. Get Rid of Single-Use Plastic

The list of single-use plastics in a typical hotel bathroom is long: mini-bottles of shampoo and conditioner, individually wrapped soap bars, sachets, plastic-wrapped cotton products, disposable slippers.

1. It cuts your plastic waste dramatically: A 200-room hotel at 70% occupancy, giving guests three mini-bottles each night, gets through roughly 153,300 plastic bottles a year from that one product alone.
2. It removes a known hygiene risk: Research has found harmful bacteria in 25% of hotel soap dispensers tested. Sealed cartridge dispensers remove that risk entirely.
3. It stops a common guest complaint: Whether that is an empty bottle at check-in or a dirty dispenser between stays.

ADA Cosmetics’ Smart Care system uses sealed cartridges independently tested for hygiene by Hochschule Rhein-Waal.

6. Set Standards for What You Buy

The things you buy and the companies you buy them from are part of your carbon footprint. Set out clearly what certifications your suppliers must hold and ask them to show proof.

Buying from certified suppliers also means they are doing part of the work for you when it comes to meeting your own sustainability targets.

7. Only Claim What You Can Prove

Whatever you say about your green credentials needs to be backed up with the certification or data that supports it. Name the certification, not just the category. Be specific about what the claim covers: which emissions, which properties, which years.

The guest bathroom is where a UK hotel’s biggest avoidable environmental costs converge and where you can act on them fastest.

1. Hot water for showers is the single highest energy cost in any guest room
2. Single-use products generate a constant stream of plastic waste
3. Every wash of towels and linen draws on water and chemicals

Tackle this one room and you cut cost, carbon and waste at the same time.

For instance, move from mini-bottles to sealed, refillable cartridges with ADA Cosmetics. Our dispenser systems replace hundreds of small plastic bottles per room each year with hygienically sealed cartridges that your housekeeping team simply refills.

The benefit is threefold: markedly less plastic waste, a lower spend per guest, and a consistently premium look at the basin and in the shower. Independently verified for hygienic safety by the Hochschule Rhein-Waal, the systems protect both your guests and your reputation while you reduce single-use plastic.

At ADA Cosmetics, our core range is Cradle to Cradle Certified Silver, giving you a transparent, third-party-backed benchmark you can stand behind with confidence.

Ready to make your bathrooms your strongest sustainability statement? Tell us about your property and our team will recommend the right dispenser system and amenity range for your hotel.