The Green Key label is gaining ground in the French hotel industry. Driven as much by customer expectations as by their own environmental concerns, more and more hotels are beginning to display this international label, created in Denmark in 1994 and deployed outside France under the name Green Key. The Best Western France network has been committed to this approach for some time now, with its new strategic vision presented last year - "Green Key". called "Towards a hotel industry with a future". - setting a goal of seeing 75% of its establishments labelled by 2025.
Already, more than a third of the hotels - 110 establishments in all, representing 37% in the network - have been awarded the Clef Verte label for 2022. This is despite the fact that two new indicators have been added to the list of criteria assessed, namely a simplified carbon footprint and the monitoring of waste weight, necessitating a new audit of hotels previously awarded the label. The hotel group is continuing to spread the word among its members to ensure that the journey continues. " On a daily basis, our CSR team meets with the hotels in the network to inform them and encourage them to adopt responsible tourism practices." said Olivier Cohn, Managing Director of BWH Hotel Group France.
Like Best Western, the long-stay brand Appart'City is promoting this label with the ambition of seeing its entire fleet to display the logo by the end of 2024. Today, half of its network - 45 of its 95 aparthotels - can boast this label, and the rest of the establishments should follow at a rate of around twenty new labels each year. The year 2022 has also focused on implementing best practices in the establishments, such as doing away with plastic bottles and replacing them with self-service water fountains, raising awareness of eco-gestures among staff and customers, and solidarity projects with Emmaüs, ENVIE and La Cravate Solidaire.
Best Western and Appart'City speed up, others follow
In addition to the new labels awarded to Best Western and Appart'City, many other establishments have obtained their Clef Verte in 2023, including the OKKO in Grenoble, the Aloft Strasbourg Étoile, the Oceania Rennes Saint-Grégoire, the Holiday Inn in Mulhouse and the Radisson Blu in Rouen and at Nice airport. Not far from here, the city of Marseille has registered a wave of newly-labelled establishments with the Maisons du Monde hotel and the AC by Marriott and eight Accor hotels ranging from the Ibis at Saint Charles station to the Sofitel Vieux Port.
While other hotels in the French group have been awarded the label this year, including the Mercure Lyon Eurexpo and the Novotel Toulouse Centre Wilson, the Louvre Hotels group has also seen new establishments recognised, such as the Kyriad Pontarlier and the Campanile Valence Nord, Nice Centre Acropolis and Paris Bercy Village. This label is also being extended to the Paris region with new entrants ranging from the ResideHome apartment-hotel in Issy Les Moulineaux to the lifestyle hotel The Hoxton, not forgetting the Montalembert and Vernet, the MOB, the Renaissance Arc de Triomphe and the Hilton Paris Charles de Gaulle.
All in all, 411 hotels in Franceout of a total of 1,077 tourist establishments, were awarded the Green Key label in 2023. Supported by theADEME and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, also a partner of the World Tourism Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme, this label is now held by more than 3,700 establishments in 60 countries around the world.
