Recently I was stuck in Boston for three days in a snow storm and I stayed in a hotel that won numerous awards for its “green policy”. It’s great to see that environmentally conscious hotels and resorts are popping up across the globe. Some of them go all out like the ones included in the Forbes Traveler article 10 Best Luxury Eco-resorts but for the rest of us, here are some other good things to look out for.

An environmentally sound hotel may include:

• The ever-polite request to hang your used towels on the towel rack if you intend to use them more than once. Plus, the request to use your bed linens for more than one night. This saves the amount of water the hotel needs to use to change the linens in every guest room, every day.
• Shampoo and moisturizer dispensers in the rooms save the environment from the thousands of little plastic bottles that they used to be packaged in.
• Individual recycle bins in guest rooms for bottles and plastics
• Room lights that are activated by the room key so that they are shut-off when the room is unoccupied

Hotels are also more eco-friendly if they purchase products and foods locally and take into account the surrounding environment in their architecture and style. Check out these websites to see some hotel chains that are making a difference:

• Environmentally Friendly Hotels
• Green Hotels Program
• It’s a Green World Eco-friendly travel destinations
• Good Travel Company Sustainable Travel