Recycling: The Great Green Illusion?

Right off the bat, let’s get one thing straight. Recycling is not the sustainability saviour we were promised. For decades, we have been told a lovely narrative: that recycling is the key to sustainability. We’ve been encouraged to sort our waste, rinse out our plastics, and drop our empty cartons into the right bin, believing that we’re playing our part in saving the planet. Hate to be the one to break it to you, but this whole system is flawed. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” was always meant to be a hierarchy, yet somehow, we’ve been conditioned to skip the first two and jump straight to “Recycle” like it’s a get-out-of-guilt-free card. Who’s to blame? Let’s take a quick history lesson….

 What if we told you that this narrative was designed to shift responsibility away from the real culprits—corporations and manufacturers—and onto us, the consumers? What if, instead of being the solution, recycling is actually a very cleverly marketed disguise for the...

What Exactly is Embodied Carbon and Why Should You Care?

Embodied carbon is the sneaky villain hiding in your hotel’s interior design, lurking in the walls, the furniture, the flooring, and even those beautiful new bathtubs you’ve just installed. Unlike operational carbon, which comes from the energy your business consumes daily, embodied carbon is the carbon footprint associated with everything used to build or renovate a property.

Photo from https://www.rpsgroup.com/services/environment/sustainability-and-climate-resilience/what-is-embodied-carbon/

From the extraction of raw materials to the manufacturing, transportation, and disposal of materials, embodied carbon is with you from the start of construction all the way through to demolition.

In hospitality, this is especially important because hotels, resorts, and even restaurants undergo frequent renovations. This constant turnover of furniture, fixtures, and décor contributes to substantial embodied carbon emissions. When you ...

Have you ever wondered about Tetra Pak cartons? They are becoming more and more common on our shop shelves - just how green a solution are they?

The environmental downsides to plastic bottles are mostly well known: they are expensive to recycle, recycling rates are low, there are limited options for the use of recycled plastic material, and plastic litter can wreak havoc with the environment. So, any person or business who are environmentally conscious, of course, would try to reduce and eliminate their plastic use.

Because of these considerations there has been an increase in metal and cardboard being used for drinks and liquid containers.

The rise in popularity of cardboard cartons, however, which are really complex composites of plastic-lined cardboard and aluminium, is a deeply imperfect solution.

Reducing plastic waste is only part of the problem: if plastic is replaced by containers that are not easy to recycle either then the replacements may not lead to an environmentally s...

ESG is currently a buzzword that people are either very familiar with or have simply heard about.

The fact is, that ESG is going to become an integral part of how we all do business, particularly on how we report on the sustainable practices of our company in a transparent way.

KALDEWEI is a company that we came across early last year and we were delighted to be able to interview one of their international project managers Paul MacSherry on the business itself and LUXSTAINABILTY.

They also shared their recently published ESG sustainability report which we view as best practice standard and a shining example of how businesses should be reporting on all aspects of their business’ operations including Scopes 1, 2 and 3. It touches on all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and is presented in a clear and transparent way.

Who are KALDEWEI and who are their clients?

KALDEWEI is a 104 year old German family-owned business manufacturing bath tubs, wash basins and shower surfaces using ...

The linear economy or “take-make-use-waste” model is being exposed for its severe negative consequences environmentally. 

Society is realising that our systems are no longer serving us. On our current trajectory worldwide, waste generation will have increased by 70% by 2050 – that’s 3.4 billion metric tons! (Global waste generation - statistics & facts | Statista). 

The message of reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose and then recycle is slow to take real effect in counteracting this waste problem.  In the Hospitality industry we need to rethink: not what we offer but how we offer it –and the consequential waste from our decisions.  

The Hotel Yard 

One missed opportunity is when renovations are taking place at a Hospitality property.  Furniture, which is still perfectly useable is being thrown in the skip in large quantities. There is an alternative. Fifty Shades Greener has collaborated with Otolo, a global online hospitality forum, for an initiative named “The Hotel Yard”. Hospital...

For the year of 2024, the team here at Fifty Shades Greener (FSG) has decided to focus its energy and efforts into spotlighting small, community driven sustainability projects from anywhere in the world that are operating on a grass roots level.

The world of sustainability itself can often be perceived as a minefield. From the enormity of the climate crisis, CSRD regulations and measuring carbon emissions, the efforts being made on the field by individuals or groups can often get overshadowed.

However, we always say at FSG, that small actions do count, especially when being carried out by many. This blog series will endeavour to highlight those people or communities who are driving REAL action.

We hope their stories inspire you, and more importantly that they spark hope.

Our eighth story features Pedro Fernández professor at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in the Department of Hydraulic, Energy and Environmental Studies.

How The Project Started

Pedro is the founder of Blue ...

As defined by the European Parliament;

“The circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended.”

The drive towards a circular economy has recently seen a huge push as it is in line with governments reaching their net zero targets. We are hearing it more and more in sound bites and headlines as for the most part, globally, there is an acknowledgement that our current linear economy is simply not sustainable.

So, how is the shift for European society going from our current throwaway culture?

Digging a little deeper into waste management plans and objectives, the Netherlands popped up several times so I decided to have a look into their overall ambitions and targets. For example, their government strategy has very clearly outlined that by 2050 the transition to the circular economy must be reach...

Have you ever put an item into the wrong bin? Food in landfill, landfill in recycling. Did your brain tell you for a second this is wrong and you still did it?

I know I have, and I am ashamed to admit it but hey, it’s the truth. I worked in the Hospitality Industry and this is a hard paced, busy, exhausting industry. There have been occasions in the past when, even though I realised the item was in the wrong bin, my body just didn't follow my brain's commands: Pick it up! This is wrong! You might contaminate the entire recycling bin! I swallowed my guilt by reasoning that I am "up the walls", in a hurry, it’s only a small thing. Have you ever been there? Has it happened to you?

 The phrase “Out of sight, out of mind” seems appropriate in this case.

Recycling Waste

A while ago, I attended a workshop from Voice Ireland, a fantastic organisation that has spent the past few years going around the country, educating people on how to recycle properly. What I learned left me astounded. A...

This is difficult to determine, because there is more than one issue at stake.

In terms of Co2 emission at the production stage, Tetra Pak cartons are the winner, followed by plastic, then aluminium, and surprisingly then glass is the worst.

Glass is the highest producer of carbon emissions because of what energy is required to produce it BUT if you are reusing the glass bottles, their shelf life is much greater than the other materials, and so it could be considered a more sustainable product.

In terms of  plastic pollution and the ability to do closed loop recycling, glass and aluminium are the winners. And as you recycle them more times, their carbon emissions start to fall back down towards cartons and plastic. As per Ethical Consumer, it depends on how the item is going to be used and then disposed of.

Some are better in terms of their carbon emissions and others tie into the closed loop of reuse/recycling and affecting waste output.

Glass and Aluminium 

• They can be recycl...

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 whi...