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Rome is raising the bar on eco travel — from luxury LEED-certified hotels to Michelin Green Star kitchens — and doing it without sacrificing any of the city’s irreplaceable character.
The case for going to Rome has never needed much making. It is one of the few cities where the fruit at the market is genuinely good, where you can eat extremely well for not very much money, and where an aimless afternoon walk tends to produce something worth remembering. It also rewards slowing down, staying longer than feels strictly necessary, and resisting the impulse to treat two millennia of history as a checklist. The harder question, these days, is how best to go — and how to go well.
Rome attracted more than 33 million visitors during its 2025 Jubilee year — more than ten times its own population — and the weight of that number registers across the city, in the lines at the Colosseum, in the retreat of daily neighborhood life from the most touristed streets, in the environmental cost of so much international travel converging on one place. Rome’s tourism councilor publicly described conditions at the Trevi Fountain as “total chaos” in 2024 — and the city has been working out, concretely, what responsible hospitality at this scale actually looks like.
Rome also committed to banning diesel vehicles from the historic center and announced plans for more than 150 kilometers of new bike lanes. Its food policy programs redirect surplus restaurant food to organizations serving the homeless. A generation of operators — hoteliers, chefs, tour guides — has made sustainable practice the core of their proposition rather than a side project, with rigorous green certifications and zero-waste kitchens redefining what Roman hospitality can look like.
The shift also asks something of the traveler. “It’s not just taking people off the main path — it’s also when you’re on the main path, being conscious and intentional about where you spend your money and who you interact with,” Paula Vlamings, CEO of global nonprofit Tourism Cares, told CNN. For Rome, that translates directly to how — and where — you choose to stay.
Sustainable travel — once largely the province of hostel stays and carbon offsets — is now part of how Rome’s most serious hotels and restaurants operate. “Rome is built on layers, and the more you dig, the more you find out,” Federico Catalioto, former sustainability curator at Six Senses Rome, told Robb Report in 2023. The observation tracks as well for the city’s green evolution as for its archaeology.
The best way to experience the city is still on foot, and that on-foot ethic has become the operating philosophy of its most thoughtful hotels and kitchens.
Where to stay
A new wave of luxury properties has made Rome one of Europe’s more compelling destinations for travelers who want depth — aesthetically, historically, and environmentally — without making trade-offs.
Six Senses Rome
Six Senses Rome earned LEED Gold certification in 2024, the first luxury hotel in the city to do so. Housed in the 18th-century Baroque Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini — a UNESCO-listed, municipally protected building — it runs entirely on renewable energy and has eliminated single-use plastics throughout the property. In 2025, it received the highest certification level from Control Union, a GSTC-accredited body, cementing its status as the most rigorously credentialed sustainable hotel in Rome. The property’s Roman baths and rooftop terrace, with views sweeping across the city’s skyline, add considerably to its draw.
“We’ve created a sustainable oasis in the center of Rome, and through this restoration, we’re creating an emotional connection to the building and to one of the world’s most historic cities in the process,” Catalioto said.
Bulgari Hotel Roma
Bulgari Hotel Roma makes its ecological commitment visible through living architecture: more than 4,500 plants fill the property, drawn from Rome’s indigenous flora and the tradition of the cultivated Roman terrace. The hotel also undertook careful historic restoration, with 400 original shutters preserved and restored by Tuscan artist Rodolfo Lacquaniti, resulting in a property that feels less like a new hotel and more like a garden that has always belonged to the city.
Hotel de Russie, A Rocco Forte Hotel
Hotel de Russie has long been one of Rome’s most celebrated addresses, and its sustainability credentials have deepened in tandem with its reputation. The hotel’s Secret Garden — a tiered Mediterranean oasis designed by Giuseppe Valadier in 1818 — anchors an eco-approach that includes Ecostars certification, plastic-free water dispensers, and a sourcing philosophy that prioritizes local and ethical suppliers. The spa offers Irene Forte skincare, made with organic ingredients from the Forte family’s farm in Sicily.
Bio Hotel Raphaël
Steps from Piazza Navona, Bio Hotel Raphaël has made eco-conscious hospitality its defining proposition since well before sustainability became a marketing category. The five-star property uses low-impact materials throughout, favors biodynamic building practices, and sources organically wherever possible. Its rooftop restaurant, Mater Terrae, ranks among the most acclaimed plant-forward dining rooms in Rome — and earns its own mention below.
Palazzo Manfredi
A member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Palazzo Manfredi occupies a 17th-century villa directly facing the Colosseum. Its suites feature natural materials selected with sustainability in mind, and its AROMA restaurant, Michelin-starred and built around locally sourced seasonal ingredients, stages its tasting menu against what is arguably the most arresting view in Rome. For a hotel that looks out onto one of humanity’s great architectural achievements, the commitment to treading lightly feels particularly fitting.
Where to eat and what to do
Mater Terrae, on the top floor of the Raphaël hotel, operates under chef Pietro Leemann and holds a Michelin Green Star for its all-vegetarian, organic, biodynamic kitchen. Artichoke tortello with pecorino emulsion, zucchini in four preparations, dishes built from ingredients traceable to specific farms — and the panoramic rooftop setting makes the experience as visual as it is culinary.
Retrobottega, a Michelin-recognized dining room near Campo de’ Fiori, sends its team into the countryside every Monday to forage wild herbs, roots, and berries, which then drive two weekly menus — one featuring meat, one entirely vegetable-focused. In Trastevere, Proloco builds its menu from hyperlocal Lazio produce and traditional regional recipes, treating the area’s farming heritage as a culinary philosophy.
Beyond the table, Rome rewards travelers who move at ground level. The city’s expanding bike lanes make cycling between the Colosseum and the Borghese Gardens a genuinely scenic option. Campo de’ Fiori’s daily produce market remains one of the most honest introductions to how Rome eats: seasonal, local, and entirely without pretense. The American Academy in Rome has operated its Rome Sustainable Food Project since 2006 — a culinary initiative originally developed with Alice Waters — connecting the city’s food and environmental community to visitors curious enough to show up.
For one of the more transportive experiences on two wheels, book an e-bike tour of the Via Appia Antica. Built in 312 BC and now a protected archaeological park, the Appian Way pulls you out of the city’s tourist center and into open countryside, past ancient tombs, grazing sheep, and towering Roman aqueducts — all of it on electric bikes that handle the terrain without the exhaust. Several operators, including Roma Starbike and Rolling Rome, run small-group tours with certified local guides.
Worth timing your visit around: Rome’s Ecological Sundays, a city-run initiative that bans motorized vehicles from the fascia verde — the city’s green belt — on select Sundays between November and March. The streets quiet considerably, farmers’ markets set up in Piazza Farnese and Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice among others, and the city offers a programme of urban trekking, neighbourhood walks, and outdoor events. It is one of the most honest ways to experience what Rome actually feels like to live in, rather than visit.
Villa Borghese, already the city’s most beloved green space, repays a slower afternoon than most visitors give it. Rent a rowboat on the lake for €4 for 20 minutes, hire an e-bike to loop the grounds, and save time for the Borghese Gallery — one of the finest collections of Bernini sculpture and Caravaggio painting in existence, requiring advance reservation but well worth the planning.
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