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What do you look for in a hotel stay? Price and location probably come top, followed by the promise of a comfy bed and a plush shower – or, even better, a roll-top bath – followed by a hearty two-course breakfast. How about whether they’re composting food waste or if staff get paid volunteering days?
These are some of the adjustments hotels are making amid the climate crisis, as conscious travellers are looking beyond electric cars or flight-free travel. With 84 per cent saying sustainable travel is important, it seems that travellers are increasingly looking for hotels that actually do better, rather than those who only claim to. For a handful of hotels in the UK, their efforts have earned them B Corp status, an accreditation and movement created by B Lab, a global non-profit. Established in the US in 2006 by Andrew Kassoy, Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, the UK arm is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. It’s been on an upward trajectory in recent years: across 92 countries, there are more than 9,000 B Corps with almost 2,400 of them in the UK, covering everything from fashion to food.
Its ethos aims to “put people and planet alongside profit”, says James Ghaffari, director of growth and product at B Corp. To achieve certification, businesses need to “meet high standards of social and environmental performance in the way they operate their business today”, he says. They are also required “to make a governance change to their business to say that beyond just being a business that’s focused on driving shareholder value, they will run their business based on a consideration of all of their stakeholders”, adds Ghaffari. Companies seeking this much-coveted status need to complete a data-heavy assessment, a process which can which can take years of data-gathering, and achieve at least 80 points across its five categories: governance, workers, community, environment and customers.
Those who meet the criteria are permitted to carry the logo – a simple capital B in a circle – which companies can use for three years before having to reapply – and a portion of revenue is paid to B Corp annually for the honour. It’s also one of more than a whopping 150 accreditations that the travel industry uses, including Green Key (prominent in the US) and Green Tourism, which are mostly environmentally focused.
Despite the buzz around sustainable travel, we know that hotels are naturally energy intensive, with 86 per cent of UK stays lasting just one to two nights, incurring heavy use of water, lights and aircon, meaning the whole premises incur a sizable carbon footprint. Such is the industry’s intense use of energy that the term “greenwashing” came from hotels that were found to over-inflate green initiatives. The term was coined by Jay Westerveld in 1986 who noticed hotels asking guests to reuse towels to “save the environment” when, in reality, it was to reduce laundry costs.
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In theory, accreditations such as B Corp should show that businesses have made a commitment to responsible practices. Yet in the past few years, B Corp has garnered controversy over awarding its logo to corporations such as Nestlé-owned Nespresso, the pharmaceutical Chiesi Group which is part of an industry heavily contributing to greenhouse gases, Coutts private bank that has been fined for money laundering and witnessed reports of a problematic work culture, and the controversial BrewDog which eventually had its status retracted after much pressure.
Green initiatives are also rolling back, including Shell scrapping its 2035 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target last year, and the US reversing its ban on plastic straws, so there’s never been a greater need for real accountability.
So what does a hotel have to do to become a B Corp certified? There’s no one size fits all answer, mainly as the points system across the five categories can be so varied, but in the UK, there are seven B Corp hotels. These include mostly mini-chains, such as Inhabit Hotels, Exclusive Collection, Mollie’s Motels, The Pig Group, and room2 hometels, plus Bingham Riverhouse in south west London and One Aldwych in central London.
The Pig hotels, created in 2011 by husband and wife Robin and Judy Hutson, really set the tone for shaking up the UK hotel’s sustainability record. The concept practically became a byword for a chic take on the country house hotel, with a forward-thinking attitude that was part of the burgeoning “restaurant with rooms” trend. They worked backwards, growing as much on-site as possible to supply the restaurant, and what they couldn’t grow, they sourced locally, birthing their signature 25-mile menu.
Kate Harvey, group sustainability manager at The Pig, is keen to emphasise that their status isn’t just down to “what you see”, however. “I’ve been here 2.5 years, which in ‘Pig years’, isn’t very long,” she tells me, as we walk around the market garden of the original hotel in Brockenhurst, The New Forest, which also includes bee hives, compost heaps, bug hotels and of course, pigs. Plenty of staff have racked up a decade, which speaks volumes for staff retention and career progression, and something B Corp looks at, but Harvey is most proud of the volunteering hours programme, where everyone is given three paid volunteering days to give back to the local community, resulting in over 2,000 hours last year.
The group, which gained its status in June 2024, is also a good example of a company that arguably doesn’t need external certification, because they’ve always worked this way, and has too many positive initiatives to mention.
At one point during my visit, I think I’ve caught them out with what looks like a single-use soap bar in a little wrapper, unlike the refillable Bramley branded toiletries. It transpires that they’re made nearby and if they’re not taken by guests, they’re collected and reused by the brand.
Harvey says the hotel group’s approach is a “holistic look at all aspects of the business and poking around at every element”, adding that “we’ve identified gaps we can improve, and [the status has] helped to guide our wider sustainability strategy as well”.
It’s a similar sentiment at Mollie’s Motel. Conceived by Soho House founder, Nick Jones, these American diner-inspired motels with a British edge can be found in Bristol, Oxfordshire and Manchester. Being a B Corp “challenges us to keep improving, hold ourselves accountable, and lead by example in an industry that’s often seen as transient,” says Trudi Parr, head of people and development at the hotel. “Hospitality can, and should, be a force for good.”
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The idea of using it as a guide is also felt by Vannessa Marx, head chef at Bingham Riverhouse in Richmond, southwest London. Owned by Sama Trinder, this elegant 18th-century hotel sits right on the Thames and is home to a restaurant, members club, treatment rooms, yoga and other wellbeing classes. It gained B Corp status in September 2024, making it the first independent hotel to do so.
Marx, who lives by her own rules and rides to work on an electric scooter, took over the restaurant in 2023. In South Africa, where she grew up, she was ahead of the curve, using organic and grass-fed beef as early as 2009, and was the first chef to use only green-listed seafood, listed by WWF’s Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative. For her, becoming a B Corp didn’t mean her job was done. “I found getting the B Corp status is like a compass. It’s your starting point,” she explains.
For many guests, a hotel’s food can be the main attraction and provenance plays a huge part in its sustainability status. At Bingham Riverhouse, they’re no longer using imported fruit at breakfast, while at The Pig, they’ve swapped smoked salmon for locally caught Chalk Stream trout, and switched imported avocados for smashed peas on toast. Admittedly, they’re not quite as creamy, but still zingy, delicious and importantly, home-grown. The Pig, like others, also uses plenty of other B Corp food suppliers, including the Garlic Farm and Isle of Wight Tomatoes, both just across the Solent on The Isle of Wight, Sharpham Dairy in Devon and Rodda’s Cornish Clotted Cream, to name just a few.
It’s not always plain sailing to secure B Corp status, however. Marx’s biggest challenge after taking over the restaurant was changing suppliers, as she wanted to use producers more aligned with her ethos. “A lot of the smaller producers only use WhatsApp for orders,” explaining that they’re not part of the usual systems catering businesses often use. “We’ve got a WhatsApp group with Haye Farm (in Devon) which includes the farmer, the butcher, the sales people, the guy that cures the meat – they’re all on there,” she says. It flipped the traditional way of ordering what you want to cook, to working with what’s available. The meat is delivered in a shared van between them and nearby Petersham Nurseries restaurant. “Even though they might be our competition, they’re still our neighbours,” which, she explains, is a positive way of collaborating to do better.
Just a few miles away, the room2 Chiswick hotel may look like more of a design hotel than a B Corp, but it’s brought the two together. Known as a “hometel” like the aparthotel trend (a hybrid self-catering hotel), there are three more outposts in Southampton, Belfast and London’s Hammersmith, with more across the UK planned. They’re affordable and fun and owned by the Lamington Group, a family company run by brothers, Richard and Stuart Godwin.
Their design sets them apart, not only for the award-winning interiors with bright marble-pattern wallpaper by a local designer and furniture sourced within a 30-mile radius, but because they’re – rather unusually – designed, built and run by the owners, which gives them far more control on decisions, as Lucy Eaglesfield, head of sustainability at Lamington explains to me. Inside, light sensors in corridors, rooms and stairwells reduce energy use and showers use 40 per cent less water than usual, without affecting the pressure. Outside, there’s a thriving living roof, with bug hotels and a hive housing 75,000 bees, while its “blue roof” design ensures that water is slowly released into drains to avoid flooding after heavy rainfall. It’s in stark contrast to the bare rooftop of a nearby building. On my tour, I’m even taken into the hotel’s plant room which was built with a heat source pump and highly energy-efficient systems that run at lower temperatures.
There’s no denying the positivity and innovation within the hotel industry – and hotels wanting to do better is only a good thing. B Corp is helping some hotels be more sustainably minded, but more work is required. What could be considered misleading about the B Corp status is that the qualifying 80 points doesn’t need to be evenly weighted across the five categories. There’s not a base level to unify brands, or a clear set of rules for consumers to compare like-for-like.
This is expected to change with what Ghaffari of B Labs calls “the biggest evolution to our standards and certification requirements that we’ve ever done”, adding that “there will be some companies that won’t be able to meet it, because they are going to be more comprehensive and rigorous”. It will be a slow process that could take up to four years, however, as it will depend on when a company’s renewal is due.
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For some working in sustainability, B Corp no-longer goes far enough. Lizzie Rivera, founder of ethical platform, Live Frankly, says that “there’s no minimum requirements” for the current assessment, which has been an issue for “too many years”. Even under the new rules, “any brand that certifies now won’t have to adhere to the new standards until they re-certify, which could be another three years – it’s incredibly slow. The question is: is B Corp pioneering the way or is it lagging behind what the world needs now?”
So what should guests be looking for? Ahead of booking, check for explanatory sustainability sections on the hotel website, read the restaurant’s menus, look at their social media presence – a lot can be learnt here from both what they do and don’t say and show. Don’t be afraid to email or ring and ask questions – any hotel walking the walk should be able to answer. And the more guests ask, the more on the radar sustainability is for companies.
Despite providing an undeniably useful framework, for most hotels with B Corp accreditation, it’s not the actual status that allows them to do better environmentally and socially. It’s a starting point – a badge that says “yes, you are doing those things”. But as the requirements for the current assessment can be so varied, the B Corp logo doesn’t mean the same for each company as it appears to, which is ultimately confusing for consumers. That isn’t to detract from the many people on the ground who are pushing for change, setting better standards and continually looking for improvement.
B Corp is on the brink of pivotal change, and there’s room for real improvement to come. But for now, as usual, there’s so much digging for the consumer to do themselves. Not many of us are willing to download dense, jargon-heavy reports to decipher a hotel’s sustainability efforts. We just want a comfy place to rest our heads that’s also trying to be better for the planet. Surely that’s not too much to ask?
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