Will solar panels atop a warehouse sell more chairs? Maybe. Sustainability, especially environmental initiatives, is driving an increasing amount of business purchasing decisions.

But how does a hotel or its purchasing department know what companies have solar panels, water conservation efforts, low-VOC finishes, LEED building certification and socially responsible practices? How does a buyer know what companies are doing to reduce their carbon footprint? How does an interior designer know what furniture, fixtures and equipment are greenest?

A new Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Index will collect a broad range of information to identify green players in the hospitality industry. Coordinated by the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium—a group of hotels, suppliers, architects and more—the index development is being managed by consultant Los Angeles-based MindClick SGM.

“We’re developing a web-based measurement system, an index or scorecard,” says JoAnna Abrams, president and CEO of MindClick. “We’re using a set of questions in three primary categories of sustainability measurement: corporate social responsibility, environmental indicators and product from raw materials to end of life.”

Soon, hotels can use the subscription-based index to make green purchasing decisions.

Marriott International has been a founding member of the Consortium that’s working on the index. “We have aggressive goals to reduce our global footprint,” says Dave Lippert, Marriott’s vice president of architecture and construction procurement. “Marriott is planning to do a large volume of ff&e purchasing as owners and franchises renovate their properties. This tool [index] gives us a framework to move our whole continuum of ff&e products forward from a sustainability perspective.”

The index is a working tool designed to get suppliers involved, as well. In fact, the existence and use of the index will drive future green product development.

“Now suppliers will know what matters to the hospitality industry in terms of sustainability,” says Abrams. “If goal is to build and maintain hotels that are operating in a more sustainable fashion the goal of a supplier would be to produce products that reduce their carbon footprint.”

At this point the program is invisible to hotel guests. That will likely change as hotels source more products. “The next step is to take it to the guest,” says Lippert. “In 2012, there’s a plan to work with MindClick to help tell that story to our customers. We want to get it into our guestrooms to show that we’re sustainable.”