'Green' Hotel Bedrooms - Not a dream but reality.

I am beyond privileged that my weekly work allows me to meet Hotel teams from all over the world.

There is nothing more satisfying than one of your students surpassing your expectations!

This was exactly the case when I met the team at the Kingsley Hotel in Cork, Ireland. They have recently availed of our current Irish offering, where in collaboration with the Kildare & Wicklow Education & Training Board, our Green Business programme is fully funded for all Irish Hospitality & Tourism businesses.

I led a training session which was aimed at motivating and guiding their Green Team where to my surprise, it was their efforts and actions already implemented around sustainability, that motivated me!

I could not pass this opportunity to write about just one of the areas the Kingsley Hotel, and in particular their Housekeeping Manager Jared Warner MIASI, has worked on for several years now: The Green Bedroom.

I had the pleasure to interview Jay about his own sustainability journey and while I cannot include EVERYTHING, as we chatted for an hour, here are some of the highlights that might assist and motivate other Housekeeping Managers to start their own Green Journey.

What Changes have you made in the guest bedrooms at The Kingsley Hotel?

One of the changes that offered the best return on investment for us in terms of reducing our waste and environmental impact, was to abolish mini toiletries. We went from providing 30 ml single use bottles, to securing large refillable bottles in all bathrooms. We now buy the product in bulk, in 3 litres containers and refill the bedroom dispensers while servicing a room.

This change not only reduced our landfill waste dramatically, but it also meant that we could offer a higher quality product like VOYA or Rituals, which is used in all of our bedrooms, as we are purchasing in bulk and the price then becomes affordable.

Better product, cost savings and environmental impact, who can argue with that? 

Another added benefit is that our housekeeping trolley doesn’t need to be stocked every morning with dozens of mini toiletries and so they are much easier for the team to restock them.

Apart from Mini toiletries what else have you changed?

We got rid of all single use plastics from our bedroom guest amenities; shower caps, tooth brushes, razer kits, sewing kits, etc. All of our bedroom amenities are now made out of bamboo or starch. We also changed our complimentary water bottles from plastic to refillable glass bottles. We have our own water filtering system at the Hotel and so we can clean and reuse the same glass bottles time and time again without the need to recycle them.

What made you make all these changes and start this amazing sustainability journey?

The honest answer is that there is money in this. If guests and society in general, are asking for these changes to happen and you can do it in a cost effective way, why would you not do it?

(Raquel: I've been saying the same for a very long time!)

For me it all started when we changed our cleaning chemicals to eco friendly cleaning products. Chemical companies want to sell as many chemicals as possible but with my local Cork supplier we can use one product for many different cleaning duties; we can clean surfaces, furniture, carpets...all with the one product that contains no chemicals and it is safe enough to place on your skin and even drink it!

The company I buy my cleaning chemicals from is JSK here in Cork, but they supply their products nationwide https://jskcleaning.ie/. I save approximately 60 to 65% on my cleaning chemical budget, through purchasing their ever growing range of chemicals that the multinational companies sell to do the same job ,as just two of their environmentally sound chemicals. 

Before I made the switch, I was buying over €1500 of chemicals a month, and we have cut it down to about €400 a month with this new eco-friendly product.

At that point there was no going back for me. I knew that sustainable products were the way to go for us and I have never looked back.

Because our room amenities are now biodegradable, our waste costs have reduced as we are not using our landfill bin as much. Even our bin liners and large refuse sacks are biodegradable.

The only paper literature item that remains in our bedrooms now is the Do Not Disturb cards as we use in-room tablets for all menus and hotel information.

When you first implemented these changes, was it easy to get buy in from your General Manager and colleagues?

At the beginning I asked my GM for a trial on the chemicals, and after a month I was able to prove the advantages of the new products plus the cost savings. It made financial sense and so even our sister Hotel got involved and started using the same eco friendly cleaning products.

It is also important that we support local suppliers, rather than giving our money to international companies, at least we are enhancing the economy in our own community.

Lastly, have you received any feedback from your customers since you made these changes?

Yes of course, a couple of people have commented they prefer the small bottles, but I believe you cannot base your strategy on two or three people’s opinion when thousands of other guests  are delighted to see our changes.

To me the best feedback is when someone steals our toiletries, because to me it means they like our product and so it is worth it.

I had so much fun learning about Jay’s Green journey, it really gives me hope for the future of the Hospitality & Tourism industry, as I always say if one can do it, so can everyone else! 

Let's just work on the figures for 2 minutes.

As per Failte Ireland, there were 143,000 beds in Hotels in 2018. Let's assume that the average occupancy rate over the period of a year is 50%, that would mean there are 71,500 occupied bedrooms per night, every night. If we then estimate that each bedroom occupant uses 1 bottle of mini toiletries that ends up in landfill the very next day.

71,500 x 365 = 26,097,500 plastic bottles going to landfill just from Ireland’s Hotels - EVERY YEAR!

Now think of the numbers from the USA, China, the rest of Europe, Asia….This production of waste JUST to provide a bottle of shampoo, is simply unsustainable.

Change is happening right now, it is up to each of us to adopt quickly, or to drag behind.