The problem
A host who has invested in solar panels, in rainwater harvesting, in a vegetable garden, in straw-bale insulation, lands on those platforms at exactly the same rank as a studio flat heated by electricity. Their work cannot be read there: ecology is a decorative filter — a green logo, a tick-box, no evidence.
And the commission is taken whatever happens. Fifteen, twenty, sometimes twenty-five per cent, levied on people who do everything themselves. Many are barely holding on.
What we do
We list these places, we score them against a public scale across seven dimensions, and then we step aside. The traveller writes to the host, the host replies, and the two of them come to an agreement.
No payment goes through us. No service fee for the traveller. And for the host: free, for life, with no commission — not now, not later.
We are not a middleman. We are a demanding directory.
What we refuse to do
Issue labels — it is not our trade, and nobody should hand themselves a certificate. The only certifications we count are those of independent third-party bodies.
Rig the ranking — we sell placements and articles, always labelled as such. We sell neither eco-score points nor a rank in the results. The ranking follows the score, not the wallet.
Promise what we do not measure — we do not claim to know your carbon footprint. We would rather say less, and be able to back it up.
What we have not solved
Travel to and from a place remains the biggest item of any trip, and there is little we can do about it — other than putting forward what can be reached by train, and counting it in the score.
Our catalogue is small. We would rather say so than inflate the figures. It grows slowly because every place is read, scored, and published with the detail of its score.
Do you run a place like that?
List it. Free, for life, with no commission. You keep direct contact with your travellers, and you take the money yourself.