Circular hotel linen

With the Circular Hotel Linen initiative, Amsterdam Economic Board tackled environmental pollution, material waste and CO2 emissions in hotels and contributed to the innovations needed for a circular textile chain.

Per year, the city of Amsterdam offers some 15.5 million overnight stays (2022). An average of one comforter, three sets of sheets and three sets of towels are available per sleeping place.

Why circular hotel linen?

Longer use of hotel textiles and making the right choices in their procurement and production has enormous potential to reduce material waste and CO2.

In addition, addressing microplastics – many hotel linens are made of plastic fibers – is an important issue.

Hotels have a large, well-organised material flow. This provides an opportunity to drive developments in the reuse and recycling market through their purchasing power.

The group of frontrunners manages a collective volume that boosts the scale-up of circular processing. Meanwhile, these leaders are part of the Green Hotels Group, which focuses on improving sustainability in many aspects of the industry.