Several groups are rating environmentally responsive sustainable-design hotels and awarding them certification on the basis of objective criteria. Those criteria are under constant review, with the aim of making them more stringent in an effort to raise the performance bar.

Eco-rating and certifying has a number of benefits. First, it sets criteria that become the design brief and marching orders for the designer. Second, attaining certification involves activities on a number of fronts, including staff education, recycling, the use of recycled/recyclable products, and energy and water conservation. Working toward certification shows in the clearest and strongest way the interrelation of many components of an environmentally responsive design and the critical balances and compromises that need to be struck to achieve success.

Attaining certification demonstrates that environmentally conscious design and operation, which often are claimed by hotel operators with little regard for fact, has indeed been achieved. More than anything else, that explains the recent explosion in interest in the various certification programs.

Table lists several eco-rating programs geared toward the hospitality industry. Of these, ECOTEL Certification has the most comprehensive and demanding engineering requirements.