There has never been a more important time to carefully select your Hotel suppliers, as more and more “Eco Products” come into the market.

Careful consideration needs to be taken when looking at new products not to fall under the “Green Washing” market.

I already spoke on a past Blog about compostable coffee cups, and I predict there will be a backlash from society about this product in the coming months. Hotels, restaurants & coffee shops all over the country replaced plastic take away cups for compostable materials, thinking they were doing their bit for the environment, even paying extra for those materials, only to realise a couple of years later that this is not the solution, in fact, it is enhancing the waste problem we have. 

Recommending suppliers is difficult

My customers often ask me for supplier recommendations, and I am normally slow to recommend any particular product, unless I know for sure the company I am recommending offers a real environmental alternative.

S...

The phone has not stopped ringing this past two months, with more and more Hotels interested in sustainability. I love seeing the mind-set of our industry managers changing, and becoming interested on running greener Hotels.

What Is Sustainability? 

Undoubtedly, there are misconceptions out there as to what “sustainability” means, in fact, the word itself does not really explain its concept. Many experts have different definitions, but to me and the Fifty Shades Greener team, sustainability for a Hotel should involve three clear pillars:

Water Conservation

Waste Reduction

Energy Reduction

The overall vision or goal for any Hotel wishing to become a Green property, should be a reduction of Carbon Footprint, and at its best, Carbon Neutrality. After Hotel Doolin’s announcement last month of becoming the first Carbon Neutral Hotel in Ireland, many hotel managers are looking to achieve the same - but Carbon Neutrality is not  a quick fix or something that can be achieved in a s...

Green Hotels are currently reaping the benefits of not having a huge amount of competition.

The Hospitality Industry, are very slowly moving towards sustainability, not realising the huge benefits that running a Greener Hotel can offer.

Make Strides Towards A Sustainable Business

Every week, I see social media posts about hotels or every larger chains of hotels making a pledge to abolish mini toiletries, or using only compostable take away cups, etc.

Yes, it is great to hear the industry is making small changes to reduce the enormous amount of single use plastics it creates, but running a Green Business, goes well beyond that.

I have worked in the Hospitality Industry for 20 years, I met my best friends working in Hotels and it has shaped me into the person I am today. You could say I LOVE IT. But I am also painfully aware of how damaging this industry is to the environment.

What really frustrates me, is that there are so many small actions, any Hotel Team can take on their daily...

Running an Eco friendly business is becoming more and more important in current times. Society is asking for change. Our customers of tomorrow, are the children of today, and they have been striking for Climate Action every week for the past year.

A huge opportunity lies for those businesses ahead of the curve, implementing Green Actions on their daily activities, to attract a large % of the market by setting themselves ahead of the rest.

Yet, the Hospitality industry is reluctant to embrace the necessary changes to create a Greener industry.

Environmentally Friendly Business Ideas For Your Hotel

Change is actually easier than most people think. It should not be viewed as an “extra task” to perform, it should consist on a change of mind set across all departments of your business and your team. It should be just the new way of running your business.

Many business owners still do not understand the concept of running a Greener business. The general perception out there, is that it ...

Are you looking to ‘green’ your business? There are many different components to running a Green business successfully. For us, at the Fifty Shades Greener Office, it all starts by learning how to control and reduce your use of Energy & Water and production of Waste.

How Can You Make Your Business Green?

Many people think that buying composable take away cups, containers, and other biodegradable materials means “Being Green”, but this is just a really small part of it. In fact, I am predicting that in the next 12 months we are going to see a backlash against these composable items. Currently, their life cycle is not working, and they are still creating a huge amount of waste. If a composable material is not disposed off correctly, and it ends up in landfill, it will not biodegrade as quick as we think.

Focus On Reducing Business Wastage

The reality is, the only way to sort out the huge Waste problem we have in the world is Waste Minimization. And that starts with single use items, ...

As some of you might know, 3 years ago I set out on a mission to help Green the Hospitality industry. I love tourism, I have worked in the industry all my life and it has helped shape me into the person I am today.

But I am also painfully aware of how polluting the Hospitality industry is, and while we hear more and more stories about hotels trying to reduce single use plastic use, or control their energy use, we are still miles behind from what we could achieve if we put our minds and time to Greening our businesses.

So this week, I wanted to highlight and write about a business, and a man, that has put sustainability at the forefront of it’s business model.

Rasika Perera is the Chairman and founder of Ravana Garden, a sustainable, luxury, boutique Hotel in Sri Lanka. I got in touch with Rasika to find out why we had set out on the mission to build a Sustainable Hotel:

"Tourism is one of the most polluting industries, majority of the industry experts are least bothered as long as ...

Very recently, I was asked to be a judge at an Awards ceremony for the Hospitality Industry. I was delighted and honour to be part of the judging panel amongst other industry experts. What I learned, is that filing award applications, is not everyone’s strength, and they can be an injustice to the actual applicant.

90% of the written applications we received were well below average. In some cases, the answers did not match the questions, or the explanation given was not factual, or the answer was just simply too short.

Thankfully, at this particular awards, we were allowed to shortlist several applicants and interview them face to face.

To be honest, I went into the interviews with low expectations, based on the applications we had received. But when I met the candidates, they blew my mind!

Every single person, had achieved a lot more than what their written applications reflected, and had I not met them face to face during the interview stage, most of them would have not been succ...

The Irish Government’s Budget 2020 was released last Tuesday, so it is not surprising that this week we are all trying to analyse what it means for us, and for our business.

The new Carbon Tax implications will affect not only individuals, but also businesses, in terms of the Gas & Oil they require to run their operations. For the Hospitality sector, oil & gas consumption can be a huge cost, and it is only going to get worse.

Maurice Bergin, founder and CEO of The Green Hospitality Programme is estimating a price hike of between 2.5 to 3.5% on your current cost of Oil or Gas. For a hotel, where their current Oil bill could be up to €100,000 annually, this could mean an extra €3,000 increase on their annual bill.

Sadly, there is a small minority of Hotels taking the right steps to reduce their Energy consumption and their Energy costs. The general perception is that running a Greener business is going to cost you a lot of money, but this is far from the truth. Reducing your Energy co...

With the reality of Brexit looming upon us, it is not surprise that all industries are worried about what it means for them.

In Tourism, the figures are quite alarming, it is estimated 10,000 job losses and a drop on National Tourism revenue of €390 million.

Nobody really knows for sure what is going to happen exactly, will it be as bad as they expect? will it be worse? Or will it actually be better? Who knows! Not even those in charge are too sure about any of it, so instead of panicking striking, let’s start looking at other things you, in your business, can do, to contra-rest the expected loss of revenue should the worst case scenario happens.

Green Tourism, a growing market

The answer is quite simple, if we are going to lose a large amount of tourist coming into Ireland from the UK, we simply need to look at other emerging markets. And, conveniently for me you might think, Green Tourism, is one of the fastest growing markets.

According to Travel Agent Central Statistics, 87% o...

All of us living in the Western world, have never known any different but an unlimited amount of water coming out of our taps and showers. You could argue therefore, that it is not our fault, to think this natural resources is unlimited and can be used as we please.

I’ve sometimes walked into a public bathroom and a tap is open at full force while nobody is using it. I myself, used to brush my teeth in the past while leaving the tap open, or washed dirty dishes without using a stopper in the sink.

This is not a guilt trip for anyone, we only know what we have been given all our lives, we think that water will never stop coming, and therefore, conserving it is not necessary.

Changes are coming

In Ireland, households do not have to pay for water. This is very different in all other European countries. In fact, Ireland and Northern Ireland are the only jurisdictions in the EU without domestic water charges. (https://www.thejournal.ie/what-countries-in-europe-have-water-charges-facts-3...