How travellers will soon be able to use Google Search to look for greener hotels

Google wants to make it easier for the user to find sustainable options while travelling. In order to accomplish that, the tech giant has created a new team of engineers, designers and researchers focused solely on travel sustainability. 

According to Google, beginning this week, when you search for hotels on Google, you’ll see information about their sustainability efforts. Hotels that are certified for meeting high standards of sustainability from certain independent organizations, like Green Key or EarthCheck, will have an eco-certified badge next to their name. 

The user will also have option to further analyse the hotel’s specific sustainability practices. They will just have to click on the “About” tab to see a list of what they’re doing — from waste reduction efforts and sustainably sourced materials to energy efficiency and water conservation measures.

Google is working with hotels around the world, including independent hotels and chains such as Hilton and Accor, to gather this information and make it easily accessible. 

Hotel owners with eco-certifications or sustainability practices can simply sign in to Google My Business to add the attributes to their Business Profile or contact Google My Business support.

Google is also joining the global Travalyst coalition. As part of this group, Google will help develop a standardized way to calculate carbon emissions for air travel. This free, open impact model will provide an industry framework to estimate emissions for a given flight and share that information with potential travellers. 

Google claims that all these updates are part of the company’s commitment to invest in technologies that help partners and people around the world make sustainable choices.