Eco host badge?

[A65]

A green ECO HOST badge, similar to the Superhost badge would allow guests who want to travel with minimum impact on the planet to choose to stay with someone who shares their concerns. 

I think Airbnb would be the first company to have such a thing? The coronavirus cleaning badge was a great idea – now let’s deal with the climate emergency too. It was here first! 

An eco host badge could be awarded to hosts who can tick a certain proportion of boxes. Some ideas below and people have shared many other ideas on here already. The main thing would be to encourage hosts and guests to think about their impact on the planet and enjoy a break in a more sustainable way.

What do you think? 

Energy: Sign up to a 100% renewable and/or carbon neutral energy company.

Discuss heating/ air conditioning requirements with guests so energy isn’t wasted. Have low energy light bulbs, A rated appliances etc.

Recycling: Provide clear information about local recycling, with separate bins for recyclable and general waste. Avoid plastic bags in bins – bins can be washed. Work towards being a plastic free zone.

Cleaning: Minimise the use of cleaning products and/or use for example Ecover products which can be refilled locally.

Info: Tell guests about vegetarian and vegan restaurants, organic stores etc. and any local environmental initiatives such as food shares, plastic free shops. Ask guests for ideas about how you can improve your ‘green credentials’!

Travel: Use the guide book section to list ways to enjoy the area without a car. Include where to find local public transport information, bike hire etc.

Perhaps offer a discount, reward or incentive to those arriving by public transport or by bike/on foot. 

Provide safe, covered bike storage if possible.

Bedroom: Wash linen at lower temperatures if possible (apart from when there’s a pandemic on!) and in less harmful washing liquids.

Save laundry by having one pillow per guest with others available if they require them.

Bathroom: Tell guests where to find extra towels if needed but don’t leave loads out so that they all have to be washed. Recycled toilet paper.

Provide soap and shampoo soap, or refillable shower gel and shampoo bottles. Don’t use tiny individual plastic bottles.

Breakfast

Offer vegetarian and vegan breakfasts. Use washable containers for butter, jam etc. instead of plastic sachets. Avoid teabags containing plastic. Cereals in glass jars, rather than plastic sachets. Buy local or offer home grown produce where possible.

Any more ideas?

[Sarah977]

Renewable energy and recycling are actually things you would be more likely to encounter in rural locations. Many rural places are "off-grid"- they may not have electrical lines or be on city water and may use solar panels or windmills to generate power.  And because there may not be garbage pick-up service, either, those with rural properties don't want to create more garbage than necessary to have to load up and take to the dump, which often has a charge for dumping. So rural properties are more likely to have compost bins for kitchen scraps and yard waste, use paper and cardboard for fire-starter, buy in bulk and use refillable containers, etc.

@Dimitar27

[Lenore22]

@Sarah977 agreed. I think @Dimitar27 's point is... It might be more eco-friendly, but you couldn't check the boxes. A listing without access to a recycling program has no need for "separate recycling bins." They might not even use plastic bottles as a rule, accept for vessels commonly used over & over, but it wouldn't warranty a trendy badge. Sustainability is as old as time, but if you put "Laguna Beach, Ca- USA"- standards on Costa Rica listings, there will be a real disconnect.

[A65]

Yes, everywhere's different. The suggestions I gave were just from my own limited experience in the UK. Would be great if hosts from all over the world could come up with other ideas people could think about....

We have lots to learn from each other!

[Anonymous]

@A65  To me, whenever Airbnb persuades people to take purity pledges and collect virtue badges, it just feels like they don't see us as adults but rather as pre-teens at some culty Bible Camp. It's infantilizing, and while it might serve the company's goal of psychologically manipulating its clientele, I don't think it's beneficial to hosts or guests in any way.

The obsession that hosts are driven to have with their "Superhost" status does not make them better hosts - if anything, it makes them constantly anxious about their reviews and contemptuous of anyone who dares give them a perfectly acceptable 4-star rating. 

To get a "Living Wage Pledge" and an "Enhanced Cleaning Badge," all you have to do is click a button and have Airbnb do the signaling for you. They have no means of actually verifying your practices, and every intention of profiting from offering guests a hollow sense of virtue and safety, respectively. How would an Eco-Host badge be any different in practice? I suppose I would meet enough of the criteria to earn one, but when over half of the guests are arriving by short-haul budget flights for a weekend trip it would be pretty silly to tell them they've had an Eco Holiday.

I do think many of the practices you outline are worthy goals, although best environmental practices are going to vary according to your home type and location. But as @Emilia42 quite rightly points out, many of the ecological targets directly contradict the key elements of Airbnb's mandatory cleaning pledge, which requires the overuse of toxic solvents, energy-wasting washing temperatures, and excessive laundering (for example, washing items that were likely not used just because they were accessible to guests) despite a dearth of evidence that this amounts to anything more than Hygiene Theatre when it comes to Covid risk management. 

So here's a thought - why don't we stop putting all this attention on stickers and badges and pledges and all this childish stuff, and instead be straightforward and clear about our practices so that guests can make an informed decision. Facts, not symbols.

[Sharon1014]

@Anonymous   Any chance that along with tossing out the "virtue signaling", we could also toss out some other nuevo language like "reaching out" (like it's somehow a  big stretch to reach out over and above the standard routine, what's wrong with just saying "contact" or "get in touch" or even "PM you" or "email you"?) and could we add the "shout out" to the language sins list too pretty please?  😇

In Aussie, when you shout something, it means you are buying a round of drinks, or you are buying dinner, or buying tickets and the other person doesn't have to pay.  And it's not like anyone is actually SHOUTING now are they? They are just acknowledging, praising, recognising, congratulating etc.   Sheesh.

[Sarah977]

OMG, "reaching out" has to be one of the most cringeworthy new-agey speak phrases. The other one that drives me up the wall is "We're pregnant". A friend of mine called to tell me that her son and his wife were expecting their first baby. "Guess what, Sarah? Tom and Katie are pregnant!"  I said "Really? Well unless Tom has undergone some serious hormone therapy since I last saw him, I have a hard time believing he's pregnant."

It's very nice that modern day dads take an active interest in the pregnancy, give their wives massages, attend childbirth classes, stay by their wives' side while she's in labor and all, but their ankles are never going to swell, they aren't going to have a crummy sleep for a month or two because they can't find a comfortable position, they aren't going to feel cumbersome and unattractive, or have the smells of foods they normally like turn their stomach. They aren't gong to endure up to 40 hours of excruciating labor pains. They aren't pregnant and they never will be. 

And when did "signs" become "signage"?

@Sharon1014

[Anonymous]

@Sharon1014  I was hoping the MeToo movement would finally kill the whole "reaching out" thing - like "no, don't reach out to me - keep your hands to yourself mister!"

Alas, despite all the ink spilled over inappropriate touching, the language of Silicon Valley only grew more creepily handsy.

[A65]

I quite agree about  all the plastic involved in the cleaning badge, also that people arriving on flights couldn't be said to be having an eco holiday! However, maybe some might want to have the option of mitigating the effects of their flight by staying with a host who does their bit for the planet. And if people care about the planet, it would be good to have a little symbol (doesn't have to be a badge- any other ideas?) to save trawling though lots of details to find out which hosts are on their wavelength. 

Yes,  the measures people can take will vary tremendously around the world, so doing a proportion of things from  good list of possibles as I suggested would be a start. It would be great to see what other folks are doing and maybe give us new ideas. It's just a way to get people thinking, not forcing anyone to do anything. 

[Anonymous]

@A65  I appreciate your good intentions, but personally I think this is a really reductive way of looking at environmental responsibility. I guess I was raised a bit before the whole "A for Effort" culture really went bonkers, but when faced with an emergency of the magnitude of the climate crisis, we're not really helping matters by indulging ourselves in a self-congratulatory circle jerk over virtuous consumer choices. 

I'm with @Sarah977  on this one, I feel like we should stop seeking validation and rewards (whether as consumers or as hosts) for doing the things we're supposed to do. We don't pin special badges on the frock of every priest who gets through the year without molesting a kid, we don't give pilots a gold star for not crashing the plane, and we sure as hell don't deserve some kind of special recognition for claiming to care about our one and only home planet. (One very effective way we can collectively reduce our footprint is to have fewer children - well, I've never gotten anyone pregnant but I'm not holding my breath for a trophy.)

It would be pretty spectacular if an Airbnb host could offer an ecological offset to the 200+kg of CO2 per passenger generated by a short-haul flight, but I'd rather not mislead customers into thinking it works this way. My response to @Emma-and-Mark0  below suggests a searchable way we could disclose our practices to those who are interested, in a more neutral way that isn't necessarily about judging one choice as more inherently virtuous than another. Some guests have health reasons to want to stay in a place as aggressively, chemically disinfected as possible, while others have sensitivities that require as little toxic intervention as possible - both care about their home environment, and neither is served well by a badge that can mean whatever you want it to. 

[A65]

We agree  that "a searchable way we could disclose our practices to those who are interested" would be useful. Any ideas about how we could achieve that? You'll realise that the badge per se is not what I'm after though I thought it would be quick and easy, but any other way that avoids having to scroll down every host's details would be just as good.....

[Anonymous]

@A65 By using the same format as the Amenities checklist, for which many of the options are already designated as search filters.

[A65]

Yes, that would be a good place for hosts to detail what they do if they want to, but still a bit of a long way round to find out, so I think something on the main page to indicate there's info on the amenities page - green smiley face perhaps? Airbnb pay people to figure these things out.....

I don't fly but I believe that flight search sites offer the choice of searching for carbon neutral flights ( I assume this means trees are planted or whatever?) I think it's time Airbnb caught up. This is always becoming more important to people. 

[Anonymous]

🙄

[Sarah977]

I think many of us already operate in as environmentally-friendly a way as possible. We do it because we care about being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I don't feel that deserves some kind of badge.

Now I have seen a number of posts from guests over time who say they are sensitive to EMFs, have allergies to commercial cleaning products, dryer sheets, etc. For hosts who really have listings which cater to that (usually the hosts have those issues as well), I can see where a designation in the search filters would be valuable to those hosts and guests.

But just recycling, not creating unnecessary waste, etc, aren't things I'd want to see some badge for.

@A65

[Emma-and-Mark0]

@A65 I think an Eco badge and vegan badge are a great idea. It would be amazing if guests could filter by these categories too.