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Study

EcoIndex Study 2026: The Unsuspected Digital Footprint of 50 Eco-Responsible Hotels in France

We analyzed 50 of France's most committed properties. The results reveal a massive gap between their stated ecological commitment and their digital reality.

When green hotels forget their website

Clef Verte, EU Ecolabel, Green Globe, ECOCERT, HQE... Environmental labels are multiplying across French hospitality. In 2026, Clef Verte surpasses 3,000 certified properties — a historic milestone. These hotels invest in solar panels, permaculture gardens, responsible water management, local sourcing, and biodiversity preservation. Their on-the-ground commitment is real, measurable, and often admirable.

But there's a blind spot no one is looking at: their website.

We analyzed 50 properties among France's most committed — certified palaces, 5-star hotels in Provence and the Alps, Clef Verte-certified Relais & Châteaux, pioneering Slow Tourism eco-lodges, organic wine estates, urban boutique hotels in Paris, eco-designed thalassotherapy centers in Brittany — measuring their website's environmental footprint using the EcoIndex tool.

The results reveal a massive disconnect between their stated ecological commitment and their digital reality.

50properties analyzed
20/100average EcoIndex score
13 Moaverage page weight
90%rated E, F, or G
160+average HTTP requests

Key findings

An alarming average score

Across the 50 properties analyzed, the average EcoIndex score sits around 20 out of 100, equivalent to an F grade on the EcoIndex scale (ranging from A to G). For sites measurable through the official tool, nearly all score a D or worse.

The grade distribution paints an unequivocal picture:

  • Grade G (0-10/100): approximately 30% of the panel — the lowest possible scores
  • Grade F (11-25/100): approximately 30% of the panel
  • Grade E (26-45/100): approximately 20% of the panel
  • Grade D (46-55/100): approximately 10% of the panel
  • Grades A, B, C: virtually absent. The only site scoring an A is a Relais & Châteaux on the Opal Coast whose homepage contains virtually no usable information and suffers from serious usability issues — technically lightweight but functionally unusable.

In summary: over 90% of eco-committed hotels in France have a website rated E, F, or G, the three worst categories on the digital environmental scale. Grades B and C are completely absent from the panel.

Score EcoIndex moyen
20/ 100

Équivalent note F sur l'échelle EcoIndex

Répartition des notes EcoIndex
G
30%
F
30%
E
20%
D
10%
A-C
10%

90% des hôtels éco-engagés obtiennent E, F ou G

Page weight: an invisible energy abyss

The average homepage weight exceeds 13 MB, more than 13 times the recommended threshold of 1 MB for an eco-designed web page. Some sites reach staggering heights: a Clef Verte-certified eco-lodge in Picardy has a homepage weighing 65 MB — the equivalent of 64 optimized web pages.

The average number of DOM elements exceeds 1,700, against a recommendation of fewer than 300. Pages generate an average of over 160 HTTP requests, where fewer than 40 are recommended.

These figures are not abstract. Each additional megabyte consumes energy on both server and user sides, slows loading, and degrades the browsing experience — especially on mobile, which represents 60 to 70% of traffic in the tourism sector.

Per 1,000 visits / month

43,5Lblue water consumption
2,9kg CO₂egreenhouse gas emissions

Average environmental footprint per page

Example result from EcoIndex

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