Over the past number of weeks, as the hospitality has prepared for reopening in both Ireland and the UK, we are constantly hearing from business owners and managers and the difficult they are having in rebuilding their teams.

There are many factors affecting staff retention within hospitality and sometimes it is our own fault - the managers of the industry. Working in such a volatile and time-pressure environment, we often forget that our team are also under pressure and over worked. There are also factors totally outside of our control at play, such as the current pandemic, causing many hospitality people to move on to other industries during restrictions and closures of hotels & restaurants.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Hospitality industry is going to find it increasingly harder to bounce back due to shortages in the workforce. The danger now is that the people that are still waiting for the industry to re-open, will once again become over-worked due to said shortages...

I am blessed that because of my job, I get to work alongside secondary school students but also the hospitality industry workers, through our Hospitality programmes. 

As an educator, I've always been aware of my own shortcomings. With English being my second language, I've always felt my language is lacking in many areas, and I often wish I could write and speak in a more professional and fluid way. For this reason, I have always felt I wasn’t good enough.

Surprisingly, it is because of my use of layman terms, that makes our programmes more appealing to my students, for young generations and adults alike.

I came across this TedTalk from John Marshall and I was hooked from the first minute, when he he had the following to say about Climate Change:

“What we have here, is a failure to communicate”. The terminology around Climate Change is a difficult one and so it seems a totally abstract concept to people, words become obstacles rather than aids, and this confusion becomes a deter...

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...

It is no secret that Climate Change is the biggest threat to our planet in modern times.

The irony of this colossal problem, is that more than likely it will not be the “adults” of this generation that will suffer the worst effects and consequences, of the current broken systems for safeguarding our planet. It is in fact, Generation Tomorrow that will have to deal with this devastation.

Even armed with this knowledge, we are still choosing to rest on our laurels and remain permanently stuck in our old ways of thinking about our educational system.

We continue to work and push the agenda of the old frameworks of recognition and accreditation for our students. We continue to provide linear learning from teacher to student even while knowing that this is not what the teachers and students want.

Last month I had the privilege to connect with Kirsty Knowles, a visionary, dynamic and astute education leader based in the UK. Kirsty has written an Education piece titled “The 3R’s are just ...

The Irish times has published an article entitled “Five trends in Green Finance”. It states that:

“The European Commission published a statement this year estimating that 42 per cent of corporate websites contain “exaggerated, false or deceptive and could potentially qualify as unfair commercial practices under EU rules”.

I have often asked myself “Why do we not have clear guidelines and benchmarks established by our leaders to avoid Green Washing?”

One would think that after the Paris agreement becoming such a landmark treaty that laws and systems would have been put in place by now to ensure its validity. 

Evidently, we are not there yet.

The term Greenwashing was first coined in the 1980's to describe behaviour or activities that make people believe that a company is doing more to protect the environment than it actually is.

So what can you do to avoid green washing?

In your organisation:

1. Never ever claim you do more than what you actually do. Be honest and transparent in ...

 A question a lot of us cannot help but ask ourselves – how do I compare to others?

It is no different when it comes to a business; in fact, the competition gets steeper.

As we work with more and more hospitality businesses to get them started on their Green Journey, this same question continues to get asked from our students:

How do my Green key performance indicators compare to other businesses?

Personally, I am delighted that people ask this question because it means that not only they have calculated their own Green KPIs, but also it demonstrates their desire to do better, to be in line with good practice standards and data.

Our advice at the Fifty Shades Greener office is always the same –

DO NOT COMPARE YOUR DATA TO ANYONE ELSE.

At least for the moment!

When you start your business’s Green Journey, there is no value in comparing your status to others. The only thing you need to do, is benchmark against yourself. This means you have one solitary goal, and that is to reduce...

Last week I was invited to speak at the Hospitality & Tourism Expo organized by the Restaurants Association of Ireland.

When I finished my presentation the audience and I had an opportunity for a quick Q&A, with one questions coming up several times:

How can I get my team to engage with Green Actions?

This is a recurring issue for many business owners and a difficult barrier to get through.

While I do not have all the answers, namely because this barrier involves human psychology and our adversity to “change”… I do have 8 tips that you can try out:

1. You cannot implement a Green Programme alone if you run a medium to large business. Period. You will need a Green Manager and a Green Team. Choose these people with care. The first instinct here would be to work with all your heads of department, but while they need to be involved in some capacity, it is important that you do not forget about your Junior Staff. There might be many hidden “green gems” within your team. People that alre
...

Human’s relationship with food is a theme that has haunted me for the past couple of years.

Why such a strong reaction do you ask? Primarily because I feel that our relationship with food and our current systems to produce it and feed the population are disconnected and broken, causing major degradation of the planet’s natural resources and ecosystems.

Only a few days ago I had the chance to watch the SeaSpiracy documentary on Netflix, which merely corroborated this frame of mind even further - we need to change our entire relationship with food.

When trying to reflect as to how our food systems started to become so unmanageable, one theme always comes to mind and that is our own relationship and respect for the food that we eat.

Do we have respect for the food that we eat?

Last month I travelled to Spain and during my trip I had a chance to visit a new fish & seafood shop near my mother’s house. The shop is beautiful, with endless counter displays of whole fish and seafood. When ...

The Irish Times has published an article titled:

Food & Drink companies facing mandatory emission targets. 

The article starts by saying: 

“All major Irish food and drinks companies will in future have to commit to reducing carbon emissions if they are to be part of Origin Green – the national sustainability programme run by Bord Bia.”

This is not surprising at all, what is surprising to me is that these measures are not part of our real world right now.

The Paris agreement is a legally binding international treaty on Climate change adopted by 196 parties in 2015. All countries participating need to achieve Zero Carbon by 2050.

Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation.

But how do we achieve social transformation?

Social transformation is not something that can be achieved in a couple of years. Our culture, politics, economy, the way we think and live, needs to be transformed in a way where carbon emissions are part of our DNA. 

Carbon ...

Last month, we were delighted to officially launch our environmental education programme for secondary schools here in Ireland.

Since the launch, we have been lucky to engage with these students and create a space where we encourage them to ask us anything that may be causing anxiety in regards to Climate Change.

One student, asked a very important question in relation to plastic waste last week:

How can we make a difference when the big companies are the ones who create the products we buy?

I love these types of questions, and students don’t hold back thankfully with how they feel. We appreciate this honesty no end.

But, how do you answer the above question?

To be fair it is absolutely a valid point to make. Our current consumer society has been created by large corporations, they thrive by sending us into a frenzy of convenient consumerism of cheaper products, disposable items, etc.

Nowadays some people feel if they do not have a new dress or suit to wear at the next party for...