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...

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...

Customer demand for Climate Change and for all industries to play their part is at an all-time high.

Society is changing, their values are changing, and those that align their business to their customer values ahead of the rest, stand to become more successful.

So what are you doing, at your hotel or restaurant, to commit and run a greener business?

The benefits of running a Greener Business

• Align your business to your customer values

• Green Marketing & PR

• Goodwill, improve your reputation

• Reduction of your business Carbon Footprint

• Better controls of your utilities, resulting in a reduction of your Energy, water and waste bills.

The future of the travel industry 

Right now, tourism & travel account for 10% of the global carbon emissions globally. AT the rate tourism is growing as an industry, would it be possible that we will become the most polluting industry worldwide in a couple of decades?

And how would that affect our future busines...

When was the last time you took time out of your day to review the energy your Hotel or Restaurant uses?

After staff wages, your Energy consumption, could possibly be one of the largest costs to your business, yet, every week, I meet hospitality managers, that don’t have control over their energy consumption.

I always found it funny, I spent 4 and a half year in Hotel Management. They told me how to budget, how to forecast, how to control staff wages. However, nobody ever told me that, when I finally became a Hotel Manager, I would also be in charge of a building.

A building that comes associated with high costs to run on Energy, Water and Waste.

In my early hotel management years I was often assigned the Early duty manager shift. Walking into work at 6.30am, your best buddy becomes the breakfast chef, they are the only ones up earlier than you!

For years, I saw breakfast chefs arrive on duty and turn all the lights on, all the ovens on, extractor fans, grills, fryers. It’s lik...