It is estimated that we waste about a third of all the food we produce for human consumption. A third!!! That’s a lot of food.

Producing food requires a huge environmental effort, land that has been deforested, species that have been driven to extinction, indigenous populations that have been made homeless and uprooted soil that has been degraded and a huge amount of water used – all to produce food that we then just throw away.

This is not to scare you, unfortunately this is the reality of the food waste problem we have worldwide. These are facts. It is hard for us in the western world to understand the devastating effects that food waste has on the environment, because we can’t see it with our own eyes.

Another devastating effect of food waste, is that when the majority of it ends up in our landfill bins, it decomposes without access to oxygen and creates methane, which is 23x more deadly than carbon dioxide.

Every which way you look at it food waste is a major culprit in destroy...

Hotels and Restaurants spend a good portion of their sales paying for utilities, the energy, water and waste that takes to run your business, can be the second largest cost you will incur over the year.

So when was the last time you trained your team to SAVE YOU MONEY??? Or have you ever?

Teaching your employees the right behaviour around the use of energy and water and production of waste is the KEY element to not only reduce your running costs, but also to run a greener, more efficient business, and to reduce your Carbon emissions. It is that simple!

I worked in the Hospitality industry all my life, since I was 17, I went through a Hotel Management Diploma for 4 years, NOBODY, in my 20 year career, told me I was behaving the wrong way around utilities, and I was spending more money than I should.

Nobody told me that switching off the over for an extra hour a day could save my workplace €2,000

Nobody told me knowing the water flow rate of our taps would help me make smarter decis...

Greening the Hospitality Industry in Kenya!

This week I am delighted to announce a new partnership between Fifty Shades Greener and Sustainable Travel and Tourism Agenda (STTA), based in Kenya.

Our collaboration, will see the Fifty Shades Greener Online Programmes deployed to Kenya’s Hospitality businesses and employees in 2020 and 2021.

STTA is an expert in sustainability of tourism, providing solutions for destination support in Africa. This support includes advisory services for tourism development strategy, tourism research consultancy, and sustainability training. The company has well established training programs for team learning and professional development, which makes them the perfect agent to partner with Fifty Shades Greener. Since its inception in 2013, STTA has been successfully mentoring sustainability leaders in the continent, and is thus a trusted training provider for tourism professionals. STTA commits to using its knowledge platform and networks to support touris...

If your business is running a Green programme to reduce it’s carbon footprint it seems logical to use your green journey as a marketing tool.

The travel agent central statistics released a report in 2019 were it stated that:

87% of global travellers want to travel more sustainably

78% of traveller would pay more to stay in Green certified accommodation

So a green programme is not only good for the planet, it is also what society and your customers are seeking more and more in recent years.

Running a Green Hotel can increase your customer footfall and rates, but there are a few top tips to follow, in order to market your green journey in the right way.

1. NEVER EVER say you do more than what you do. This is my number one rule, always be honest and never over exaggerate your achievement, there is nothing worse than green washing.
2. Document your team’s journey through videos, photos and social media posts. Are you having a Green Team meeting? Take a photo, disclose what you discuss a
...

Sustainability doesn’t have to be an unattainable goal, or something in the distance that we all know exists but we fail to pursue. There are so many small changes we can all implement in our lives and workplaces that will directly affect our use of resources and our production of a carbon footprint.

When I founded Fifty Shades Greener in 2017, my mission was to train the hospitality workforce in Ireland, so we could live up to our name, the Emerald Island, providing green accommodation to our overseas visitors.

Fast forward a couple of years and my goal grew legs. I now want to teach every single hospitality worker in the world the little things we can all do to change our behaviour around the use of energy and water and production of waste.

A new partnership between Fifty Shades Greener and Dalhousie University’s College of Continuing Education will help bring this dream to life as we work together to green the hospitality industry in Canada.

For more than 35 years, the College o...

Allow me to steal 3 minutes of your time today to show you how simple it is to reduce your Hotel’s carbon footprint and even achieve carbon neutrality.

Sustainability is this big word that is thrown around so often and in so many scenarios that it becomes an unachievable task in our minds. So I want to demystify it and break it into actionable steps:

1. Calculate your current Carbon Footprint

This is again easier than you might think, all you need to do is learn to understand your utility bills, waste, water and energy.

2. Set up a system and assign a person in your team to monitor your carbon footprint every month – this person is going to be your Green Manager who should report to you and the rest of the time periodically.

3. Observe your building, where and when is energy used, where and when is water used and where and what waste is produced.

4. Provide staff training for waste, water and energy reductions

5. Generate savings in year 1 and 2 from your utility
...

Choosing your courier is not an easy task. Some people know from an early age what they want to be when they are adults, that was not the case for me. I remember when I was 17 and my parents pushed me to chose a college and a path.

I had no idea what I wanted, all I knew is that I wanted to do something fun that would inspired me everyday.

I have found inner peace in a lot of jobs that have come my way over the years, but after a while, something always made me change paths, like if what I was doing was not really my calling.

I have felt for years that I had not found my place in the world yet. But every job, every courier change, taught me something new, a new skill, a new outlook, how to pick myself back up and how to enjoy the little wins.

8 years ago, after a long courier as a Hotel Manager, I was challenged with the concept of Green Hospitality, resource efficiency and reduction of carbon footprint.

It took me a long time to really engage with this concept. Work was busy, I n...

Climate crisis, biodiversity collapse and extinguished eco systems are common words we hear every so often in recent years.

But what can I do about it?

Can I change it?

And if I can’t, should I care?

In a post COVID economy, business owners have enough to worry about without also joining the fight against climate change. However, can running greener business help recover the tourism and hospitality industry?

I think YES.

Benefits of running a Green Business

• A Green business is one that reduces it’s energy, water and waste, when you reduce your utilities you also SAVE money.

• Align your business to your customer values: 87% of global travellers want to travel more sustainably.

• Green Marketing & PR: Jump ahead of your competitors and offer something different that society wants.

• Improve staff turnover: Give your team something they care about and make your workplace a better choice for employees.

It is now more important than ever, that we stop to...

Never in our minds we would have thought our beloved Hospitality industry would lie dormant for 3 months. But that is the reality of 2020, as the world re-opens slowly, and people start to travel, it is time to take a good luck at our current standards of procedure, and ensure we are running efficient businesses.

It has never been more important than now to ensure we reduce our business running costs, by having efficient systems in place. If you have never implemented an Environmental Management System at your business, chances are you are paying for more Energy, Waste and Water than you really need to.

• Who turns on your kitchen main over every day and at what time?
• What is your most disposed of item of landfill waste?
• What is the water flow rate of you bathroom taps?

If you know the answers to those 3 questions, you are already on a winning path! But if you are not sure on the answers, or need to “check” with someone else, this means you are not in control of your business ut...

I studied Hotel Management back in the late 90’s and early 2000. It was 4 years of my life when I had the most fun, and met what would become my best friends for life. During my time in college they taught us how to do a business budget, how to forecast, how to control staff wages and dealing with a team of people. But the funny thing is, nobody told us, that when we became Hotel Managers, we would also have to manage a building.

A building, that comes with really high running costs on energy, water and waste. These utility bills, can amount to be, after staff wages, the second largest cost to your business. Yet, learning how to control, monitor and reduce them, never came into play during my years as a trainee manager.

I have worked in the hospitality industry for 20 years, but the first time I learned about an Environmental management system, was in 2012. And today, having worked as a Green consultant for nearly 3 years, I still meet hotel and restaurant managers every week that ha...