Greenwashing.com: The Illusion of Sustainable Travel

TL;DR:

Sustainability in travel should be more than a badge. Despite global initiatives like Travalyst and sustainability filters on Booking.com, many credible certifiers and truly sustainable accommodations are being left out. The result? A system that rewards surface-level compliance while sidelining real impact. It's time for transparency, inclusion, and urgent action in sustainable tourism.

When sustainability becomes more about appearance than action.

In a time when sustainability is the buzzword across every travel platform, the promises made by global giants like Booking.com and initiatives like Travalyst ought to mean something. But for those of us actually doing the ground work, and trying to follow the rules they themselves have created, things don’t always match the headlines.

In recent years, the travel industry has made attempts in presenting a greener face to the world. Central to this shift has been Travalyst, a coalition of travel giants formed to promote sustainability across the tourism sector, founded by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.

Amongst its founding members is Booking.com, one of the world’s most influential accommodation platforms. On the surface, the partnership suggests progress. But dig a little deeper, and the cracks begin to show.

When I first founded Fifty Shades Greener in 2018, my goal was to educate the Hospitality & Tourism sector to measure their environmental impact, to understand their data and make better decisions for the planet and all the species living in it. I never set out to become a certification body, mainly because in general, I don’t believe in certifications for sustainability. I believe that education and training is the only way we are going to correct our wrongs and build a better future for all.

I always viewed certification for sustainability as a “checklist”, and in a large proportion, that is still what it is.

Have you ever stayed in a Hotel where a sign in the bathroom tells you to hang your towels if you don’t want them changed and help “save the world”? (for starters, saving the world by not washing towels is already an over statement).

I travel a lot, I always hang my towels, and they still get changed.

All these hotels were certified as “sustainable” because someone took the time to make the signs, place them in the rooms and Voilà, you have achieved a standard (tick the box). The problem is that these “sustainable initiatives” were introduced to achieve a badge, but the management team did not bother training or sharing the initiative with their housekeeping team, leading to the Hotel being compliant with certification standards just on paper.

It is 2025. It is too late for meaningless initiatives that work only on paper.

After 5 years working with over 280 hotels as a training company, all of our students kept asking the same thing: Can you certify us? The answer was always no. Until in 2024, Travalyst launched their Sustainability initiative:

Ok, this seems real, this seems measurable, and this seems transparent I thought.

I launched into it headfirst; we dedicated 3 months of work to put together a robust certification process, I upskilled my team to perform audits, we created our standards and our systems and processes.

My company, Fifty Shades Greener, became officially recognised by Travalyst as a sustainability certification body in August 2024. This recognition was achieved by following a rigorous evaluation of our standards, processes, and impact. It was a proud milestone that promised to open doors for our certified accommodation providers, especially on platforms like Booking.com that had publicly committed to showcasing sustainable properties through verified third-party certifications. Even better, I thought that finally, there will be transparency for travellers when choosing sustainable properties. What a win for the sustainable tourism industry!

We were delighted, we thought we had met a global standard that mattered and was going to be of benefit to our clients, to the tourism industry and to the planet…

But that promise has yet to materialise.

Despite our Travalyst-approved status, Booking.com continues to tell us:

"Given the evolution of certifications landscape and regulations, we have temporarily paused the onboarding of new programs to ensure we include the most up to date information for travelers and to assess how we can most accurately select and display information to our customers. For this reason, we have temporarily halted adding certifications to our platform. When this changes, we'll be happy to discuss opportunities to work together in supporting accommodation providers."

“Temporarily” meaning an entire year? And however longer it might take… Changes in regulation holding them back? As far as I know, regulation and policy are constantly evolving…at least in the world of sustainability!

At the same time, Travalyst continues to list Booking.com as a participating partner, displaying an image of unity and shared commitment to sustainability that, in practice, is misleading, as Booking.com is NOT accepting new certification programmes that have been already approved by Travalyst.

This disconnect is more than frustrating. It is harmful.

I may sound like a “scorned woman” that is ranting because she did not get what she wanted. But the reality is that by restricting recognition for an entire year to a closed group of select certifiers, Booking.com has effectively created a bottleneck that limits the visibility of genuinely sustainable properties.

As a traveller, have you ever chosen a Booking.com “Sustainable property” and found there was nothing sustainable about them?

Accommodation providers that have met robust, independent standards, are excluded from being recognised as sustainably certified properties in Booking.com, not because of quality or credibility, but because Booking.com are “waiting” for over a year to see how the regulatory landscape changes. Meanwhile, travellers are led to believe that the properties they see with sustainable filters, are the only truly sustainable choices. In my opinion, this is quite simply greenwashing by omission.

In this time of great climate crisis, the planet cannot continue to “wait” for regulatory changes, which have so far, failed us.

The consequences of this are real. Hotels and tourism businesses making sincere efforts to operate responsibly are left invisible in a system that claims to reward sustainability. Certifiers and innovators like us at Fifty Shades Greener are locked out of market access.

We believe in sustainability.

We believe in accountability.

And we believe that partnerships should be more than a logo and a press release.

If Booking.com wants to remain a credible leader in sustainable travel, it must open the door to all Travalyst-approved certifiers without further delay. If Travalyst wants to protect its mission, it must hold its partners accountable for walking the walk (and not just talking the talk).

Real sustainability cannot be selective. It must be inclusive and aligned with the urgency of the environmental crisis we face.

Sustainability isn’t just about carbon metrics or recycled towels. It’s also about equity, integrity, and transparency. When leading platforms make selective decisions behind the scenes, they not only eroding trust, but they also undermine the very future they claim to support.

We contacted Travalyst and Booking.com to offer them space to comment on this piece:

A representative from Booking.com said: “We know that traveling more sustainably is a key consideration for many travelers. That’s why we are committed to making it easier for travelers to make more mindful choices by displaying recognised third-party certifications related to sustainability efforts. 

Given the ongoing shifts in the regulatory landscape, we temporarily paused the onboarding of new certifications until we could be more certain that any new certifications displayed to customers would meet the evolving regulatory standards. 

With increased clarity on the current regulatory direction, we are reviewing the updated criteria and will be making the necessary changes to our programme, so that we can ensure that we continue to provide customers with the most up-to-date and reliable information.”

If you're tired of greenwashing and want to do things differently — let’s chat.

💚 The FSG Team