Abstract
The global attention towards climate change has led national governments and the international community to the definition of plans aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all economic sectors. Recently, attention has focused also on the tourism sector, and especially on the lodging industry, which consumes high amounts of resources and energy to satisfy guests expectations in terms of offered services and comfort conditions. In this sector, eco-certifications or green labels are spreading, perceived as useful marketing tools to communicate the hoteliers’ environmental efforts to consumers, who are becoming more and more sensitive to ecological matters. However, the wide offer of green labels and the lack of appropriate information are contributing to increase costumers’ confusion and perception of real “green”. The present paper focuses its attention on a set of currently available tools to evaluate the environmental performances of hotels, in order to enquire if and to which extent they are able to inform about the sustainability of accommodation structures. Starting from the wide number of certification schemes available on the market, 19 multi-attribute, third-party green labels were compared, aiming to explore the role that energy efficiency measures play in the certification procedure.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Nakata, T., Silva, D., Rodionov, D.: Application of energy system models for designing a low-carbon society. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 37, 462–502 (2011)
United Nations World Trade Organization (UNWTO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): Making Tourism More Sustainable – A guide for policy makers (2005). https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/8741. Accessed 23 Jan 2020
Preziosi, M., Tourais, P., Acampora, A., Videira, N., Merli, R.: The role of environmental practices and communication on guest loyalty: examining EU-Ecolabel in Portuguese hotels. J. Clean. Prod. 237, 117659 (2019)
Han, H., Kim, Y.: An investigation of green hotel costumers’ decision formation: developing an extended model of the theory of planned behavior. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 29, 659–668 (2010)
Han, H., Hsu, L.-T.J., Lee, J.-S., Sheu, C.: Are lodging costumers ready to go green? An examination of attitudes, demographics, and eco-friendly intentions. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 30, 345–355 (2011)
Gupta, A., Dash, S., Mishra, A.: All that glitters is not green: creating trustworthy eco-friendly services at green hotels. Tour. Manag. 70, 155–169 (2019)
Kim, W.G., Li, J.J., Han, J.S., Kim, Y.: The influence of recent hotel amenities and green practices on guests’ price premium and revisit intention. Tour. Econ. 23, 577–593 (2017)
Wang, W., Krishna, A., McFerran, B.: Turning off the lights: consumers’ environmental efforts depend on visible efforts of firms. J. Mark. Res. 54, 478–494 (2017)
Manganari, E.E., Dimara, E., Theotokis, A.: Greening the lodging industry: current status, trends and perspectives for green value. Curr. Issues Tour. 19, 223–242 (2016)
Gil-Soto, E., Armas-Cruz, Y., Morino-Marrero, S., Ramos-Henriquez, J.M.: Hotel guests’ perceptions of environmental friendly practices in social media. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. 78, 59–67 (2019)
Font, X.: Environmental certification in tourism and hospitality: progress, process and prospects. Tour. Manag. 23, 197–205 (2002)
Honey, M.: Ecotourism & Certification: Setting Standards in Practice. Island Press, Washington, D.C. (2002)
Plüss, C., Zotz, A., Monshausen, A., et al.: Sustainability in Tourism – A guide through the label jungle (2016). https://destinet.eu/who-who/civil-society-ngos/ecotrans/publications/guide-through-label-jungle-1/. Accessed 23 Jan 2020
Vierra, S.: Green Building Standards and Certification Systems. https://www.wbdg.org/. Accessed 23 Jan 2020
Brilhante, O., Skinner, J.M.: Promoting sustainable construction in the EU. Green Labels, Certification Systems and Green Procurement (2015)
Shi, Q., Yan, Y., Zuo, J., Yu, T.: Objective conflicts in green buildings projects: a critical analysis. Build. Environ. 96, 107–117 (2016)
Wei, W., Ramalho, O., Mandin, C.: Indoor air quality requirements in green building certifications. Build. Environ. 92, 10–19 (2015)
Mahdavinejad, M., Zia, A., Larki, A.N., Ghanavati, S., Elmi, N.: Dilemma of green and pseudo green architecture based on LEED norms in case of developing countries. Int. J. Sustain. Built Environ. 3, 235–246 (2014)
Bratt, C., Hallstedt, S., Robèrt, K.-H., Broman, G., Oldmark, J.: Assessment of eco-labelling criteria development from a strategic sustainability perspective. J. Clean. Prod. 19, 1631–1638 (2011)
Buckley, R.: Tourism ecolabels. Ann. Tour. Res. 29(1), 183–208 (2002)
Oom do Valle, P., Pintassilgo, P., Matias, A., André, F.: Tourist attitudes towards an accommodation tax earmarked for environmental protection: a survey in the Algarve. Tour. Manag. 33, 1408–1416 (2012)
Wiberg, A.H.: An analysis of the performance of certification schemes in the hotel sector in terms of CO2 emissions reduction. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge (2009)
Dell’Anna, F., Bravi, M., Marmolejo-Duarte, C., Bottero, M.C., Chen, A.: EPC green premium in two different European climate zones: a comparative study between Barcelona and Turin. Sustainability 1(5605), 1–20 (2019)
Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN). https://www.globalecolabelling.net/. Accessed 23 Jan 2020
Nguyen, B.K., Altan, H.: Comparative review of five sustainable rating systems. Procedia Eng. 21, 376–386 (2011)
Reed, R., Bilos, A., Wilkinson, S., Schulte, K.W.: International comparison of sustainable rating tools. J. Sustain. Real Estate 1(1), 1–22 (2009)
European Parliament: Directive (EU) 2018/844 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 amending Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings and Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency. Brussels (2018)
Acknowledgment
The work was developed in collaboration with Andrea Tartaglino, within his master thesis research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Crespi, G., Becchio, C., Buso, T., Corgnati, S.P. (2021). Environmental Performances in Green Labels for Hotels – A Critical Review. In: Bevilacqua, C., Calabrò, F., Della Spina, L. (eds) New Metropolitan Perspectives. NMP 2020. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 178. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48279-4_109
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48279-4_109
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-48278-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-48279-4
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)