Our list of the best sustainable hotel products for your home

From the cold cut to the cover – at sustainable hotels you can discover great, eco-friendly and fair hotel products that might also be an inspiration for you back home.
Do products make an accommodation sustainable?
As we see time and again at Green PearlsⓇ accommodations, the paths to greater sustainability are many and varied. It always depends on local conditions and opportunities – as well as the individual priorities of hoteliers.
Particularly critical to sustainability in the hotel industry are
- construction
- energy supply and use
- heating and cooling
- water and sanitation
- food
Things like “honey from your own beehive” are not that important in the overall ecological balance. However, the many small contributions add up, and for the guest, the attention to detail often makes all the difference.
18 environmental and resource friendly products
#1 Workwear
Many sustainable hotels pay attention to sustainability when it comes to their employees’ workwear. Here are some key points that will make not only your workwear, but also all your everyday clothing, better:
- Durable and long-lasting materials
- Ecological materials such as GOTS certified organic cotton
- Non-toxic fabrics, OEKO-TEX 100 certified
- Made in Europe and/or Fair Trade companies
👉Read more on our blog about sustainable hotel workwear.
#2 Bathrobe
The bathrobe is one of the luxuries a hotel offers. As with any item of clothing, fashions change regularly. In recent years, for example, robes have become more selfie-friendly or come with smartphone-sized pockets. Colorful hooded robes made with GOTS-certified organic cotton are all the rage. But some sustainable hotels have decided not to phase out the classic white robe, because it’s more sustainable to use well-maintained items for as long as possible.
👉Here are the bathrobe trends for 2024/2025.
#3 Beds and bedding
Hästens beds are not only the most expensive beds in the world, they are also very popular with many of our sustainable hotel partners (e.g. CERVO Mountain Resort Zermatt). These boxsprings are handmade in Sweden and filled with horsehair. Other partners rely on COCO MAT’s vegan beds (e.g. the Lifestylehotel SAND at the Baltic Sea).
👉Learn more about sleeping comfort at eco-hotels and vacation rentals
#4 Bread
Have you ever enjoyed a bread sommelier’s selection of breads? In our blog, we talked with bread sommelier Benjamin Profanter from the Naturbackstube in Brixen. He supplies the wellness hotel My Arbor* (about 15 minutes from Brixen). Benjamin explains what makes bread sustainable and good. For example, ancient grains are especially important.
👉You can read the blog article about sustainable bread here
PS: We have also put together some tips for sustainable snacks when hiking.
#5 Decoration
At Green PearlsⓇ hotels and accommodations, you will often find ingenious decorating ideas that we have already discussed several times here on the blog. What’s great about them is that they are often DIY projects, natural products or upcycles, and that you can easily recreate many of them at home:
#6 Breakfast
Have you ever only eaten breakfast at a hotel? Internationally, hotels are often among the best places to have breakfast, surprising you with a nice atmosphere and many delicacies. Sustainable hotels like the SCHWARZWALD PANORAMA in Bad Herrenalb, Germany, offer a completely waste-free breakfast buffet. A hybrid of buffet and table service has also proven to be ecologically sound – egg dishes, for example, are guaranteed fresh and nothing needs to be thrown away.
👉Learn more about breakfast at sustainable hotels
By the way: Have you ever made your own hummus? This vegan power breakfast from the Levant is easy to make, as the Paradiso Pure.Living Vegan Hotel* on the Seiser Alm in South Tyrol shows.
#7 Honey
Many sustainable hotels have made a commitment to protect the bees and care for hives. The sweet reward is the honey that many of them produce. The APIPURA hotel rinner* on the Ritten in South Tyrol is at the forefront. The hotel is run by passionate beekeeper Paul Rinner and his family. In addition to the hotel’s own organic honey, the hotel also offers Api-Wellness, where guests can inhale the air from the beehive. The hotel has been around for 50 years and has been committed to biodiversity and bee conservation since before the bee hype.
👉Learn more about the power of honey.
#8 Coffee
We spoke to Viennese barista Moritz Unterlechner of the Unterlechner family, who run the Biohotel Grafenast in Vienna, about the sustainable coffee trends for 2024/2025. He recommends the organic coffee beans (espresso and filter coffee) from BOB & Co.
The German Green City Hotel Vauban in Freiburg is an integration company and therefore works with other integration companies whenever possible, such as the coffee roaster Zollernalb..
👉Discover sustainable coffee trends here
#9 Clothes Hanger
The SCHWARZWALD PANORAMA is increasingly designing the interior of the hotel with a closed cycle of raw materials in mind, and has now renovated an entire floor according to the cradle-to-cradleⓇ principle. It is important that all materials are either biodegradable or 100% recyclable.
👉In this Insight, they present their hangers made of meadow grass.
#10 Lamp Shades
Other cool things can be made from grass, hay and hay flowers. The Hotel Klosterbräu, for example, uses bedside lamps made of hay flowers in its nature rooms. The nature rooms are made entirely from natural and local materials – the wood comes from the hotel’s own forest and the walls are plastered with local clay.
👉Learn more about hayflower lampshades here.
#11 Marmalades and jams
Do you know the difference between jam, marmalade, jelly and fruit spread? Well, this summer we explained it on our blog and also featured delicious sweet spreads from our Green Pearls partners – with recipes, of course. Homemade jam from local fruits is not only delicious, but also a zero waste product!
👉Read about jams, jellies and marmalades here.
#12 Natural Cosmetics
In sustainable accommodations, you shouldn’t find disposable products in the bathroom. The small bottles and tubes that are still available in many conventional hotels not only create a lot of waste, they often contain hazardous substances and microplastics.
Some hotels, like the ADLER Lodge RITTEN*, even make their own line of cosmetics, with ingrediance right from the region. That way they know exactly what is in it.
Learn more in our article about natural cosmetics in hotels. For background information, we also recommend the article how beauty care and environment are related.
👉The Green DIY Spa Day article even includes recipes you can try at home.
#13 Olives
Olives grow throughout the Mediterranean, and for many of our southern partners, the olive harvest is an annual highlight. Relais del Maro in Liguria*, for example, hosts an olive festival every November in the coastal town of Imperia. At the festival, you can taste a wide variety of olives. Of course, the region’s famous Taggiasca olives are also available at the Albergo Diffuso, a 4-star hotel spread over several buildings in the village for a truly authentic Italian experience.
👉Read more about olives in Italy and Spain.
#14 Plant-based drink
Cow’s milk has a high carbon footprint due to the way cows are raised. But are vegan milk alternatives really greener? Hotels such as the 100% vegan, adults-only LA VIMEA* in South Tyrol have long offered guests a wide range of plant-based drinks for their coffee. Now, a “cappuccino with oat drink” is a staple on the menus of other hotels as well.
👉Find out if this is better for the environment with our sustainability check for plant-based beverages.
#15 Carpets
“Even though our carpets are trampled on, we still pay a lot of attention to sustainability, design and the concept behind them when making our selections”. This is how the Hotel Luise in Erlangen, Germany, describes its policy. The hotel uses carpet tiles from Interface (locations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland). Interface focuses on circular carpets made from recycled materials. The “NetEffect” carpet tiles, for example, are made from recycled fishing nets. According to various studies, abandoned or lost fishing nets make up the largest proportion of marine plastic.
The Lifestylehotel SAND in Timmendorfer Strand also has Interface carpet tiles. The adults-only hotel chose a model made of post- and pre-consumer PET to match the hotel’s natural Baltic Sea style.
👉Learn more about carpets made from fishing nets
#16 STUA Furniture
Sustainable furniture is also a hallmark of green accommodations. Many Green PearlsⓇ hotels feature restored antiques or furniture made by a local carpenter using local wood.
The OCEANO Health Spa Hotel in Tenerife recommends the Spanish furniture brand STUA, which is also available in stores.
👉Learn more about STUA furniture.
#17 Tea
Strictly speaking, only the leaves of the tea plant are tea – but in German-speaking countries, other infusions made from herbs, spices and flowers are also called “tea”. You can easily brew these in a carbon-neutral way using the plants on your balcony!
👉Learn more in our blog article about tea, where we also reveal the blends of some of the hotels.
#18 Vases
Every hotel lobby should have at least one beautiful vase of fresh flowers. But to be sustainable, you need two things: first, a sustainable vase (at the Klosterhof – Alpine Hideaway & Spa in Bayerisch Gmain, these are made by a local artist who uses a 3D printer to create vases out of coffee grounds). And second, sustainable flowers. STURM in Mellrichstadt introduced us to the Slow Flower movement.
👉Hier siehst du die Vasen aus Kaffeesatz
“I saw this in a Green PearlsⓇ hotel”
By the way, the reason I find sustainable hotel products so cool is that they are so beautiful to show off 🙂 They combine your travels with individuality, with the skills of professional interior designers and of course with a love for our planet.
So the products listed here won’t be the last you’ll find on the blog. Do you already have an idea of what we should include?
*CIN-Codes:
IT021072A1QCJQTLUQ (ADLER Lodge Ritten)
IT021011A1AE4737IT (My Arbor)
IT008010A1NIWKHTTF (Relais del Maro)
IT021072A1UOWUIDH4 (APIPURA hotel rinner)
IT021056A1J4HHYSU4 (LA VIMEA)
IT021019A16MFGOUCR (Paradiso Pure.Living Vegan Hotel)
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