Jon Proctor is a new kind of hotel inspector. He doesn't count the milk sachets above the mini-bar nor care whether the curtains match the carpet.

What will impress him is a low-energy dimmer switch in the hotel lobby and a water-saving device fixed to the shower. Jon is the technical director of The Green Tourism Business Scheme, a programme that assesses tourism businesses on their eco-credentials.

I joined him on an inspection of a 280-room hotel in the West End of London. For three hours, we inspected air-conditioning units and recycling bins and quizzed staff on their hotel's green policies.

Jon's job reflects changing times in green hospitality - nowadays you're just as likely to find a hotel in a city centre that recycles its waste as you are at a rural eco retreat.

The 2008 Green Spaces Travel awards

We're very impressed with the quality of entries and there's still time to enter

• Meet our Green Space judges

• Win a rail holiday to Venice

Meet our Green Space judges

Anna Shepard and the five other judges reveal their favourite places, from Shropshire to Namibia

20 classic green holidays

It's so hard to be green and enjoy yourself, isn't it? Not with these 20 corkers

• 10 classic volunteer holidays

Related Internet Links

• Read our Green Central Blog on the enviroment

Related Links

• Your Top 10 complaints about hotels

Since 1999, the scheme has vetted more than 1,400 tourism businesses in England and Scotland, awarding its bronze, silver or gold awards to a range of accommodation, from family-run B&Bs to large multinational hotels.

I asked Jon which was the greenest hotel he has inspected. Without hesitation he said Strattons, the family-run boutique hotel in Swaffham in Norfolk (main picture). The hotel has fitted water-saving devices in its bathrooms, it recycles almost all of its waste and serves only local, seasonal or organic food in its restaurant. A double room costs from £150 with breakfast (01760 723845, www.strattonshotel.com).

Strattons has set the standard, but Jon said that all the Gold award winners do something impressive for the planet. One of the latest is Brignall Mill, an 18th-century watermill near Barnard Castle bordering the Yorkshire Dales. The owners have installed a micro-hydroelectric scheme, a heat pump, solar panels and woodburners. A week's self-catering (for up to six) costs from £260 (01833 637726, www.brignallmill.co.uk).

Many other places keen to demonstrate their green credentials are queuing up to be inspected. One hopeful is Rosehill Cottages, Cornwall, which opened in January. Its ten wooden lodges are made from timber sourced from Forestry Stewardship Council woodland and each lodge has a log burner and a grass roof to keep the lodges warm in winter and cool in summer. A week's self-catering at one of the in a two-bedroom lodges costs from £540 (01209 891920, www.rosehilllodges.com).

In other countries hotels are signing up to similar eco labels. The Hotel Ferienart Resort and Spa in Saas Fee, Switzerland is the first five-star hotel to receive a “European eco label for tourism”.

Among its many eco initiatives is a sensor that switches off the lights and appliances the moment a guest leaves the room. Dinner and B&B are from 149 euros (about £120) per person per night (00 41 27 958 1900, www.ferienart.ch).

The Scandinavian hotel group Scandic has one of the most comprehensive green policies for a hotel chain - it has committed to eliminate half its fossil CO2 emissions by 2011 and all by 2025. The majority of its hotels have been awarded the Nordic Swan eco label and the group has announced it will no longer buy in bottled water to its hotels, instead offering bottled, filtered water from its own taps (www.scandichotels.com).

Many of the innovations used by green hoteliers are thanks to the increasing number of technologies coming on to the market. One of the most ingenious is at the IntercContinental Resort and Thalasso Spa Bora Bora in French Polynesia. Instead of using energy-intensive refrigeration systems for its air-conditioning, the hotel has sunk a pipe into the ocean to draw up deep-sea cold water, which saves up to 2.5 million litres of fuel oil a year. From £600 a night in a villa for two (www.boraboraspa.intercontinental.com).

At the recently renovated Dolder Grand in Switzerland, 70 heavily insulated geothermal heat probes have been installed 150 metres beneath its spa, which has reduced the hotel's energy consumption by half. Double rooms, excluding breakfast, are from about £477 (SwFr950) a night (00 41 44 456 60 00, www.doldergrand.com).

The Bowood Hotel and Spa in Wiltshire has embarked on a £7 million project to instal a large biomass boiler and plant reed beds, as well as incorporating a heat exchanger, sedum roof and sustainable materials such as lime render, and is due to open this autumn (01249 812102, www.bowood-house.co.uk).

Yet being green is not all about energy efficiency and recycling. Jon Proctor has a checklist of more than 150 items, from the sourcing of food to whether the concierge encourages guests to use public transport. Fifty tourism businesses a month are joining his scheme and the signs are that green accommodation is becoming increasingly mainstream: “businesses are recognising that they may not be around in three to five years' time if they don't get on board now”.

The Green Tourism Business Scheme (www.green-business.co.uk)

Times recommends

• Croatia: the flashing blades of Korkcula
• The best stopovers en route to Australia
• Chernobyl offers a holiday in hell