Last week during a Radio interview the presenter said: I love your company name, why did you chose Fifty Shades Greener?

The question brought me back to 2017, when I was an enthusiastic entrepreneur at the very start of my journey. The film Fifty Shades Darker had just been released and while it receive criticism it was a big hit in the box office.

I am not a fun of the movie and I have not read the book, but there was something about the name Fifty Shades Darker that stock with me.

The connotation that dark or green or any colour can have many different shades, resonated with the training programme I had already started drawing on my mind, one that would bring a business through different shades of Green.

I checked in with my husband as I normally do with important decisions and his reaction was: “Ugh. No, you are going to be dealing with businesses and business people, they will not like that name”

I normally listen to his advice, otherwise I would not ask, so I thought about it...

This week, I thought Id give you a break from telling you my opinion on something or other and instead, I wanted to highlight a business that is walking the walk and talking the talk when it comes to their Green Programme.

Dating back to the 18^th century, Whatley Manor is a beautifully restored manor house and spa nestles in 12 acres of gardens. Apart from their impressive award winning restaurant, what most attracts me to this property is their sustainability programme, which kick started in 2019.

Last week I had the pleasure to find out more about how they began their journey from Sue Williams, General Manager.

“The owners of Whatley Manor and I were discussing the subject of our operations impact on the environment and it was evident that we all had strongly held views that we wanted to focus hard on becoming more ethical operators both on property and in the community. We very quickly got underway as all parties were aligned.”

Having the owners and top management invested on a ...

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
...

Industries and roles within those industries are an ever changing landscape.

Who would have thought that Hotels and Restaurants, would need Green Managers in 2020? I know I didn’t!

I became a Green Manager myself in 2012, when that title barely existed, and it was one of the most rewarding positions of my courier to date. Fast-forward 8 years, and appointing the right Green Manager is one of the most important decisions you will make from a HR point, that will affect your business over the next 5 years.

Winter is coming and with that, a downfall on Hotel occupancy in Ireland and every country in the world. We are lucky to a point here, as the government has put in place a wage subsidy scheme, to help hospitality businesses pay their staff wages.

But how are you going to use that scheme to it’s full advantage? If you have less customers will you reduce your employee’s hours? Will you let go some people that might be valuable to your team?

The perfect storm has been created for you ...

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...