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...

Make America Great Again has been one of the taglines used by President Donald Trump since 2016. For me, the connotation of this tagline is to make America great at the expense of other nations, economies and even species.

It is no secret that Trump’s presidency is based on a ruthless ideology of capitalism over anything else, but one of the most dangerous aspects of his presidency is the lifted protections for at-risk animals as part of his aggressive rollback of environmental rules.

Biodiversity in the world is at its worst state in human history, 1 million land and marine species across the globe are threatened with extinction.

In a now “usual” spectacle of ignorance, the Trump administration has lifted protections for America’s animals and opened up a huge amount of federal land for oil and gas drilling, coal mining and other industrial activities.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/20/trump-administration-endangered-species-environmental-rules

According to the...

Recently, I spent some time in my beloved Spain, in the city of Bilbao in particular. During my stay I was delighted to see the hotel I had booked did not offer single use toiletries, Yipee! I was thrilled.

I know for most people this might be a silly thing to get excited about, but when you work in the world of Environmentalism, and you see the figures I see in a weekly basis, regarding discarded mini toiletries, this is a big thing.

Single use plastics in hotels are a much bigger issue than most people think. To a customer, opening a mini bottle of shampoo, or an individually wrapped ketchup sachet, or a mini jam at their breakfast seems like a very small thing. It is just one item, isn’t it? What harm can it do?

An issue much bigger than we think

According to STR Global (American based company that tracks global data), there are nearly 200,000 hotels in the world. This number does not include guest houses, B&B’s or hostels so the real number is much larger. Let’s say every hot...

Hi Guys! 

In this week’s thought of the week I wanted to give you a quick update on the #SaucyChallenge, number 4 & 6 are my favourite updates!!

1. Keep your photos coming

So many people have sent us photos of their local pubs, restaurants and cafes that are not using individually wrapped sauces. I am humbled by the public’s reaction to this campaign and all I can say is a massive THANK YOU to all of you for supporting it. Keep those pictures coming!! As I want this campaign to be based in positivity, I will never name and shame a business that uses individually wrapped sauces or condiments, instead, I will champion those that have already made a change or that are whiling to make the change required to abolish them.

2. Keep talking to your local business

I have receive 3 phone calls so far, from business owners that heard about the campaign through their own customers so again WOW, a massive thank you to all of you that are highlighting the issue with your local food service prov...

Last week I had a radio interview with NearFM about the #SaucyChallenge, and one of the questions Sabrina asked me was "When did all these single packaging starter?" and that got me thinking...

Shopping Frustrations

I don’t know about you but I am quite often absolutely shocked about the way shops, supermarkets, etc package the stuff I buy. Here is what happens, I bring my own reusable bag to put my shopping into, when I buy some fresh fish, they place it in a plastic bag and give it to me, I go to the check out till and the attendant puts the fish (already inside a bag), into a brown paper bag, for me to place the fish that is inside a bag, now wrapped in a second bag into my shopping bag. What the hell? When did I start accepting plastic as the new normal?

And it is not only fish, the same happens when I buy firelighters, which come in a box, which also has a second plastic bag inside the box already. The level of separation from my firelighters to my skin is plastic wrapping arou...