Sustainable hotel practices: what pays back and what fails

Most hotels already run a list of sustainable hotel practices: keycards that switch off the heating, refill stations, opt-out cleaning, a certificate at reception. The harder question is which of them still work after the pilot, on a full house, with real guests. Some measures pay for themselves within a year. Others look good on paper and quietly fail.

Four people who deal with this every day answered that question: Gavin Fraser, who leads built environment and sustainability for a hotel group in Amsterdam; Remco Groenhuijzen, general manager of a 408-room hotel in Amsterdam; Chrys Filimegkas, director of operations at a luxury hotel in the same city; and Eric Van Lambalgen, who advises hotel groups at board level on finance and sustainability.

Why good sustainability ideas fail on behaviour

Most failures are not technical. A measure can be well designed and still fail because guests use it differently than planned. Remco Groenhuijzen gives the classic example: the keycard slot that switches heating and cooling on and off. In his hotel, guests leave the card in when they go out so the room stays cool. Once such a system is built into the building, it is very hard to disconnect.

Gavin Fraser saw circular floor tiles that could not stand up to the wear of a busy hotel, and bamboo and biodegradable products that guests saw as lower quality. His group shifted to reusable items that can be washed and reused 10,000 times, because a biodegradable product is still a disposable one. The same logic applies to eco friendly hotel amenities such as the water bottle. Eric Van Lambalgen names the common thread: hotels often want to go too fast, with initiatives people do not yet understand. The lesson: test a measure against how guests and staff really behave, and plan how to explain it.

Which sustainable hotel practices pay back fastest

Gavin Fraser points out that hotels are among the most energy and water intensive buildings of any type, so utilities are where the measurable savings sit. The panel's clearest wins:

• Opt-out room cleaning. Remco Groenhuijzen's hotel uses a Hotels for Trees card that guests hang on the door to skip cleaning, a simple form of green housekeeping. With 408 rooms, he says it saved about 200,000 euros in cleaning costs in 2025, against about 70,000 euros paid for planting trees.
• Heat pumps. Chrys Filimegkas says a heat pump system installed during the pandemic cut his hotel's energy consumption by 50 percent.
• LED lighting. A swap most hotels are making, with a clear return.
• Leaving the gas grid. Eric Van Lambalgen's former group took two hotels off gas completely: a large investment, but a direct saving as gas prices rise.

The trade-off, in Fraser's view, is upfront cost. An opt-out card costs almost nothing, while new air conditioning needs a high investment with a good long-term return. Van Lambalgen adds that government subsidies can return a half or a quarter of an investment: a lot of work, he says, but worth it. Each euro saved feeds straight into hotel profitability.

Measure first: energy monitoring and certifications

For groups with several hotels, Gavin Fraser recommends an energy management system that tracks energy and water use for every property in one place. In his view, such systems can have a low upfront cost and reveal peaks and problems nobody had noticed, such as leaks. Measurement also corrects assumptions: in his group, a canal house from the 1600s uses a quarter of the energy per room night of the group's 20-year-old hotels. No hotel is built the same.

Certifications drew the most scepticism. In Fraser's experience, not all are equal, and many exist mainly as a marketing tool. Corporate clients demand one anyway, and in Amsterdam almost every hotel has one. The value he does see is diagnostic: some give good insight into where a hotel can save money.

Do guests care? Stop assuming and quantify the impact

Eric Van Lambalgen cites a study in which 88 percent of travelers said sustainability is now an important factor in their booking decision. In his view, budget guests rarely pay a surcharge but choose the sustainable option at the same price, while luxury guests are willing to pay extra. Chrys Filimegkas adds that luxury guests will not compromise on the feeling of luxury.

Gavin Fraser warns against deciding for guests. He describes a hotel group that flies 50,000 eggs a day from France to its hotels in Dubai, because that was assumed to be what guests want.

“I think when we assume what the guest wants and what the guest is willing to do, I think that's where we already fail.”

Gavin Fraser, 22:28

His suggestion is to make the impact concrete. Hotels rarely tell guests that a room night uses 250 to 300 litres of water in Amsterdam, or 500 in Barcelona.

What makes sustainable hotel practices survive a busy Saturday night

There is no shortage of good ideas. Whether an initiative lasts beyond the pilot depends on whether it fits daily operations. Chrys Filimegkas puts the test simply.

“It needs to be able to work on a Saturday night, it needs to be able to work on the big season.”

Chrys Filimegkas, 39:57

From the conversation, a practical checklist emerges. A measure lasts when:

• it is built into standard operating procedures and onboarding;
• it adds no extra steps of service and is ideally automated;
• it reduces work for the team rather than adding to it;
• it produces data the hotel can act on.

Eric Van Lambalgen sums it up: if it does not work for the team, it will not work. Gavin Fraser's example is the paper registration card that night teams still type up, scan and shred. A digital registration is fast to implement, saves work and captures better contact information.

Suppliers and scope 3: where the largest footprint sits

Eric Van Lambalgen argues that a hotel's largest emissions sit with its suppliers, the scope 3 emissions, while most attention goes to the hotel's own operation. Gavin Fraser agrees that scope 1 and 2 can only be reduced so far. Under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, his group has to ask suppliers about energy, waste, pollution and workers' rights, which also helps map the supply chain.

“We need to start challenging our suppliers to deliver not just products but data behind the products as well.”

Eric Van Lambalgen, 57:07

Practical steps the panel named:

• Write a supplier code of conduct and keep reviewing it.
• Use performance-based contracts with sustainability KPIs.
• Ask for take-back or mono packaging.
• Join forces with other hotels so suppliers take the demands seriously.

Van Lambalgen calls it a marathon, not a sprint. His advice is to build the business case on strong numbers, make real claims instead of calling a towel hook sustainability, and be open that you are not perfect yet. To hear all four views, watch the full conversation or explore more episodes of The Sustainable Stay.

Frequently asked questions

What are sustainable hotel practices that actually save money?

In the experience of these hotel leaders, the fastest returns come from measures with almost no upfront cost, such as opt-out room cleaning, which saved one 408-room hotel about 200,000 euros in a year. Heat pumps, LED lighting and modern air conditioning need more investment but deliver measurable savings over the long term.

Are hotel sustainability certifications worth it?

It depends on the certification. In Gavin Fraser's view, not all certifications are equal and many work mainly as a marketing label, especially where nearly every hotel already has one. Their real value lies in the insight some of them give into how a hotel runs and where it can save money.

Why do sustainability initiatives fail in hotels?

According to the panel, most failures come from behaviour rather than technology, such as guests leaving keycards in the slot so the room stays cool. Initiatives also fail when they add work for the team. Measures built into standard procedures, with no extra service steps, have the best chance to last.

What are scope 3 emissions for a hotel?

Scope 3 covers emissions outside the hotel's own operation, such as how suppliers deliver goods and how guests and employees travel to the hotel. Eric Van Lambalgen sees the supply chain as a hotel's largest footprint, and advises asking suppliers for data behind their products and setting sustainability KPIs in contracts.