Booking.com has removed its “Travel Sustainable” program, which scored accommodations based on their sustainability efforts.
The removal of the “Travel Sustainable Badge” follows pressure from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The badge was intended to help consumers find properties that are operating more sustainably.
ACM objected to the Travel Sustainable program scoring system, which gave properties a score between 1 and 3+ depending on their efforts. The organization called the “presentation of this program to be misleading.”
“The claim Travel Sustainable may wrongly give the impression that traveling is sustainable,” ACM said in a statement. “Additionally, it was not sufficiently clear to what aspects the claim refers, which may result in a distorted impression of the actual sustainability efforts of accommodations.”
Booking.com introduced the Travel Sustainable program in 2021 and said last year it was continuing…