Product tour
See the whole thing before you talk to anyone.
Five stops through the surfaces a hotel actually uses — the diagnostic, the score, the gaps worth fixing first, the plan they turn into, and the evidence that makes the whole thing hold up. The questions are the real ones and the numbers come from the real scoring engine, run over a worked example you can read end to end.
- No signup for this tour
- Nothing here is saved
- The real scoring engine
The worked example
An illustrative 84-room UK city hotel with a restaurant and no pool or spa. It is asked 42 of the 45 questions in the bank, across 8 impact areas.
Illustrative figures shown for demonstration · scoring ruleset 2026.3 · question bank 2026.3
Stop 1 · The diagnostic
Answer where you actually are, not where you would like to be.
Every question is scored on the same 0–5 scale, and each point on it has written wording attached — so "3" means a stated thing rather than a feeling. These are three real questions from bank 2026.3, with the real control. Point at a level to read what it commits you to.
Governance & policy
GOV-01 · bank 2026.3
Do you have a formal sustainability policy?
A written policy sets expectations for staff and management. It is the starting point every certification scheme looks for.
Counts toward
- GSTC Hotel Standard
- Green Key
- ISO 14001
Evidence that supports it
Policy document, Website statement, Board approval
Try it — nothing is saved
You are only asked what applies
A property with no pool is never asked about pool covers. The bank holds more questions than any single hotel sees.
Follow-ups appear only when they mean something
Say you have no targets and you are not then asked how you review them. A foregone zero is not a second finding.
Not applicable is not zero
Marked N/A, a question leaves the calculation entirely and its weight is shared across the areas that remain.
The worked example that follows is a pass of 42 questions through bank 2026.3 for the property described above. Answering here changes nothing and is not recorded.
Stop 2 · The score
One number, and the 8 areas it is made of.
The overall score is a weighted average of the impact areas, and the weights are published. It is arithmetic, not judgement: the same answers always produce the same number, and no AI touches it at any point.
Maturity band
Developing- Leading 90+
- Advanced 70+
- Developing 40+
- Early Stage 0+
Computed from 42 answered questions under scoring ruleset 2026.3 and question bank 2026.3. Both versions are stamped on the result, so any score can be recomputed later against the exact rules that produced it.
Score by impact area
Weight of the total
- Governance & policy
- 48%10%
- Energy
- 52%19%
- Carbon & emissions
- 26.7%10%
- Water
- 60%14%
- Waste & circularity
- 64.4%19%
- Procurement & supply chain
- 50%10%
- People, guests & community
- 60%14%
- Biodiversity & community
- 32%4%
Illustrative figures shown for demonstration. This score belongs to no hotel. It is what the published weights return for the answer set described at the top of this page, and it moves whenever those answers do.
Stop 3 · Priority gaps
Not your lowest scores. Your most expensive ones.
Sorting by score alone would put a 1 in a lightly-weighted area above a 2 that blocks a minimum standard. The ordering below is a rule, applied the same way every time: anything backing a minimum standard first, then whichever gap has the most weighted points still on the table.
Flagged regardless of the score
Can you evidence the origin of your renewable electricity?
UK legal requirementThis reflects a UK legal requirement. A gap here is a compliance exposure rather than a maturity gap, and it does not become acceptable because the rest of the assessment went well.
These are flagged separately from your score, not deducted from it. Your score is calculated from the published weights and the same answers always produce the same number — a flag says what that number cannot.
Ranked priorities
- 01
Have single-use plastic water bottles been removed from guest areas?
Waste & circularityScored 2/5Area weighted 19%Minimum standardBacks a minimum standard, so it blocks certification readiness regardless of its effect on your score.
- 02
Do you measure your carbon footprint?
Carbon & emissionsScored 1/5Area weighted 10%Minimum standardBacks a minimum standard, so it blocks certification readiness regardless of its effect on your score.
- 03
Do you monitor energy consumption?
EnergyScored 3/5Area weighted 19%Minimum standardBacks a minimum standard, so it blocks certification readiness regardless of its effect on your score.
Illustrative figures shown for demonstration. The ranking rule is the product's. The gaps it ranks belong to the worked example, not to a customer.
Stop 4 · The plan
Every gap becomes an owned action in a phased plan.
Which phase an action lands in is decided by how much work it takes, not by how much we would like it done: a policy you can write this week sits in the first thirty days, a tariff switch or a capital job sits in the last thirty. Each one carries the department that can actually start it.
Days 1–30
7 actionsPolicy, ownership and starting a log — work that needs a decision, not a budget.
- #3High impact
Ask your electricity supplier for REGO certificates and keep them on file — a green tariff alone is not evidence of renewable origin.
Management · Low effort · Energy
- #4Medium impact
Introduce a monthly waste volume or weight tracking process and review trends regularly.
Housekeeping · Low effort · Waste & circularity
- #14Low impact
Set a quantified, dated carbon reduction target against your baseline.
Management · Low effort · Carbon & emissions
Days 31–60
7 actionsTraining rollouts, procurement criteria and data collection processes.
- #1Medium impactMinimum
Replace bedroom bottled water with a filtered station or glass carafes.
Procurement · Medium effort · Waste & circularity
- #2Low impactMinimum
Calculate a baseline Scope 1 and 2 carbon footprint using a recognised methodology such as HCMI.
Engineering & Maintenance · Medium effort · Carbon & emissions
- #8Low impact
Set aside one area of your grounds for wildlife — reduced mowing, native planting or a pollinator strip.
Engineering & Maintenance · Medium effort · Biodiversity & community
Days 61–90
6 actionsSupplier or tariff switches, capital works and new partnerships.
- #5Medium impact
Get a feasibility quote for rainwater harvesting or condensate recovery — being able to show you assessed it counts for more than most people expect.
Engineering & Maintenance · High effort · Water
- #6Medium impact
Evaluate renewable electricity tariffs or on-site generation options with your energy supplier.
Engineering & Maintenance · High effort · Energy
- #7Medium impact
Explore reuse, repair or recycling partnerships for furniture, textiles or amenities.
Procurement · High effort · Waste & circularity
The worked example produces 20 actions in total; the highest-ranked three of each phase are shown. The # is the action's rank across the whole plan, which is why a high-ranking action can still sit in a later phase — it matters most, and it also takes longest.
Illustrative figures shown for demonstration. A plan for a property that does not exist. Yours is built from your own answers by the same rules.
Stop 5 · Evidence and readiness
A score is a claim. Evidence is what makes it survive a question.
Every answer can carry the document that backs it — a policy, a meter export, a supplier letter. Evidence never moves the score, deliberately: the number stays reproducible from the published weights, and what the evidence changes is how defensible it is when an assessor asks.
Conformity against minimum standards
4 of 11 metEach row is judged from the questions in the bank that map to it, by a fixed rule: every mapped question at 4 or above meets it, an average below 2 does not, and anything between is partial.
- HSB-01Do you monitor energy consumption?Partially meets
- HSB-02Do you monitor water consumption?Partially meets
- HSB-03Do you separate waste into the correct streams?Meets
- HSB-04Do you measure your carbon footprint?Does not meet
- HSB-05Do you have a linen and towel reuse programme?Meets
- HSB-07Does your menu offer substantial plant-based options as a matter of course?Partially meets
- HSB-08Have you reduced or removed avoidable single-use plastics?Partially meets
- HSB-09Have single-use plastic water bottles been removed from guest areas?Partially meets
- HSB-10Are bathroom amenities provided in bulk dispensers rather than miniatures?Meets
- HSB-11Do you support local community initiatives?Partially meets
- HSB-12Do you monitor staff wellbeing, inclusion and fair employment practices?Meets
What you attach
All 42 questions in this pass accept a supporting document, and each one names the kinds it expects — so gathering evidence is a list to work through rather than a guess.
- Policy document
- Website statement
- Board approval
- Org chart
- Job description
- Internal assignment
- Target document
- KPI dashboard
- Annual plan
- Meeting notes
- Reports
- Dashboards
What “ready” means here
The readiness check is a gate, not an opinion: it refuses while any minimum standard is unmet, any mandatory action is open, or any required document is missing from storage. Passing it means we have nothing left to find — which is the only thing we are ever in a position to say. Certification itself is awarded by an independent assessor applying their own judgement, and we neither make nor influence that decision.
This assessment is designed to help benchmark sustainability practices and prepare for recognised sustainability frameworks. It does not constitute certification.
Illustrative figures shown for demonstration. The conformity rows above are computed from the worked example's answers, not from any property's records.
What this is not.
We do not certify anyone
Green Key, Green Tourism and GSTC-accredited bodies award certification after their own assessment. This product measures how ready you are for theirs and hands you the file to take into it.
Nothing here is a promise about your result
No score, saving or certificate follows from using this. What the product commits to is narrower and checkable: the same answers always produce the same number, from weights we publish.
Nothing here is a customer
Every figure on this page is computed from an invented answer set for a property that does not exist. No hotel's results, name or data appear anywhere in this tour.
Now run it on your own property.
The diagnostic takes about ten minutes and needs no card. You get your own version of every screen above, built from your answers rather than an example.
Get your free score