It’s not easy being the greenest hotel in one of the world’s greenest cities.
Just ask anyone at the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers by IHG. Within a few months of opening, it received an award for being the world’s most sustainable hotel.
No pressure, right?
After that, it found itself constantly pushing the sustainability envelope in a city where everyone pushes the sustainability envelope.
“We were a sustainable hotel back when almost nobody was talking about sustainability,” says Frida Ulrik-Ulrik-Petersen, the director of sustainability at Bellagroup, which owns Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers. “But now it’s more complicated. We have to have sustainability integrated into our entire business. We have to keep moving.”
But what does “moving” look like in a place like Copenhagen?
Ulrik-Petersen says the hotel’s green ambition extends beyond just its solar-paneled building to encompass the guest experience, relationships with suppliers and even the community. It’s a sprawling goal that she says has kept the hotel in a green leadership position for the last 15 years.
A hotel built to be green
The Crowne Plaza, which opened its doors in 2009, was purpose-built to be environmentally friendly. This vision quickly earned it the prestigious EcoTourism Award in 2010 as the world’s greenest hotel.
“The hotel’s ambition was to be a sustainable role model,” explains Ulrik-Petersen.
From the start, it generated approximately 10 percent of its electricity through building-integrated solar panels covering the facades, with the remaining power sourced from wind energy, which immediately ensured its carbon-neutral status, according to the hotel.
The property also embraced social responsibility early on, initiating a program to help refugees find employment. It’s a commitment that has fostered loyalty among staff, with many refugees still working there today.
“Our employees trust that we have sustainability at the heart of everything that we do,” she adds.
Fortunately, they’re in a place where that matters.
Copenhagen wants a sustainable future, too
The Crowne Plaza’s efforts are not happening in a vacuum. Copenhagen makes no secret about its sustainability ambitions. The Danish capital consistently ranks among the world’s greenest cities.
Everywhere you go in Copenhagen, someone is talking about sustainability. It is widely considered one of the world’s best bike cities, with 246 miles of dedicated bicycle paths. Nearly half of Copenhageners cycle to work or school. The city offers electric city bikes for rent, and encourages cycling with innovations like “green wave” traffic lights that feature digital countdowns and footrests at junctions.
Its commitment to clean transportation also extends to the water, with a fleet of electric harbor ferries that are the world’s first all-electric public water transport. The city’s bus fleet is also increasingly electric.
Copenhagen’s sustainable values permeate its daily life, especially its renowned culinary scene. New Nordic Cuisine has a strong emphasis on local, organic, and seasonal ingredients. Here, buying organic produce is seen as a logical choice, not a luxury. Organic food accounts for roughly a quarter of food sales in Copenhagen, and nearly 90 percent of food consumed in the Copenhagen’s public institutions is organic.
The city’s historic harbor, once an unsightly industrial hub, has undergone a transformation into a vibrant recreational area. Today, it features 10 public bathing zones where swimming is possible for at least 350 days a year (if you can handle the cold water). Even urban development prioritizes water, light, and green spaces.
Green tourism is a draw in Denmark’s capital
If you’re visiting Copenhagen, there are sustainability programs for you, too. The city has engaged with tourists in its green mission through initiatives like CopenPay, which awards vouchers for climate-friendly actions like waste cleanup or using public transportation. There’s even a dedicated sustainability guide to Copenhagen, which offers tips for making eco-friendly choices.
For accommodations, Copenhagen makes sustainable choices easy. A significant majority of the city’s hotel rooms — as many as 75 percent by some estimates — are eco-certified with labels like Green Key or the Nordic Swan label. In fact, finding an eco-certified place to stay is actually easier than finding one that isn’t.
Some of that might never have happened without the Crowne Plaza.
“Almost no one was talking about sustainability”
How has the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers stayed a step ahead of the other hotels in Denmark? Part of it is just timing: It was an early adopter.
“Fifteen years ago, almost no one was talking about sustainability,” says Ulrik-Petersen.
She says continuous innovation, a holistic approach to operations, and an unwavering commitment to both environmental and social responsibility has kept it there.
There’s an assumption that a hotel has to choose between profits and principle — the idea that it can’t do something good for the environment and its bottom line at the same time. But Ulrik-Petersen says the hotel refuses to accept that.
This idea that you don’t have to make that choice continues to guide the hotel’s efforts, with sustainability and environmental performance continuously monitored, challenged, and improved, according to Ulrik-Petersen.
Today, everyone in Copenhagen is talking about sustainability.
Here are a few highlights:
The hotel’s initial design incorporated highly advanced aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) systems, Denmark’s first groundwater-based cooling and heating system. This special system pumps groundwater to the surface for cooling in the summer and reuses it for heating in the winter. ATES can cut heating and cooling energy consumption by up to 90 percent, leading to the hotel using 65 percent less energy compared to other similar hotels.
Ulrik-Petersen says that sustainability is deeply integrated into its supply chain management, which prioritizes organic, seasonal, and locally sourced ingredients. The hotel also enforces a supplier code of conduct to promote sustainable practices among its business partners. Even the kitchen utilizes the latest induction technology to minimize heat waste, and all food waste is ground and sent to a bio-gas plant.
The Crowne Plaza is widely recognized as a pioneer, inspiring other hotels. The Bella Group, which operates the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, has extended this sustainability mindset to its other properties, including the AC Hotel Bella Sky and the Copenhagen Marriott. The hotel also participates in Planet Copenhagen, a collaborative pledge with other organizations and businesses to make Copenhagen more sustainable by 2030. Its ISO certifications for Environmental Management and Sustainable Events have also encouraged suppliers to become ISO verified, creating a positive ripple effect throughout the supply chain.
The hotel isn’t resting on its laurels. The Crowne Plaza hotel is committed to achieving net zero by 2050, and its short-term target is a 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. The biggest challenge, she notes, is in the kitchen. Food and beverage remains a special focus, especially reducing the carbon footprint of high-impact items like beef and lamb.
What’s it like to stay at one of Denmark’s greenest hotels?
What’s remarkable about the Crowne Plaza’s sustainability is what you can — and can’t — see.
Copenhagen Towers, the office complex it’s part of, has a winter garden with palms and other tropical plants, a hat tip to its green ambitions. If you look closer, you might notice structural elements made from upcycled concrete and wood from old window frames. A decade ago, repurposing these materials was considered cutting-edge.
The hotel’s Orang Utan coffee, a point of pride, comes from a sustainable project in Sumatra that supports orangutan protection and is grown regeneratively in the rainforest.
“People can feel good about drinking the coffee because it’s a good cause,” says Ulrik-Petersen. “But it’s also good coffee.”
There’s a long checklist of sustainable practices in the guest rooms. Instead of single-use plastics, amenities like shampoo bottles and toothbrushes are made from corn and potato starch, making them recyclable and biodegradable. Rooms are furnished with recycled pieces from a Danish design company. The hotel also uses more subtle ways to save energy, such as not activating room heating until the guest checks in.
There are the waste bins, which require that you sort your waste between paper, plastic and other items.
But most of the sustainability features are invisible.
“It’s not something you would see,” says Ulrik-Petersen.
For example, there’s a “water-only” cleaning system that uses special microfiber cloths and minimal eco-friendly detergents, creating a healthier environment free from harsh chemicals. And there are countless systems in the back of the house dedicated to recycling and energy savings that no guest will ever see.
That doesn’t bother Ulrik-Petersen at all. In fact, sustainability should be something second nature that people don’t notice.
“It’s a way of thinking,” she says. “And a way of living.”
Being the greenest hotel in one of the world’s greenest cities isn’t a title you can simply win once and frame on the wall. It’s a moving target — one that demands constant reinvention, invisible systems, and tough choices about food, energy, and community. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers has carried that weight for 15 years and shows no sign of stopping. In a city where everyone is chasing sustainability, it’s managed to stay a step ahead by not treating it as a checklist.