For the year of 2024, the team here at Fifty Shades Greener have decided to focus our energy and efforts into spotlighting small, community driven sustainability projects from anywhere in the world that are operating on a grass roots level.

The world of sustainability itself can often be perceived as a minefield. From the enormity of the climate crisis, CSRD regulations and measuring carbon emissions, the efforts being made on the field by individuals or groups can often get overshadowed.

However, we always say at FSG, that small actions do count, especially when being carried out by many. This blog series will endeavor to highlight those people or communities who are driving REAL action.

We hope their stories inspire you, and more importantly that they spark hope.

Our fifth story features The Studio, an organisation which produces eithical crafts created by Syrian and Palestinian refugee women in the Shatila camp. 

Their mission is clear: To ignite hope, foster...

We are delighted to present the fourth volume in our "Year of Hope" 2024 blog series.

At FSG, we have decided to focus our energy and efforts into spotlighting small, community driven sustainability projects from anywhere in the world that are operating on a grass roots level.

The world of sustainability itself can often be perceived as a minefield. From the enormity of the climate crisis, CSRD regulations and measuring carbon emissions, the efforts being made on the field by individuals or groups can often get overshadowed.

However, we always say at FSG, that small actions do count, especially when being carried out by many. This blog series will endeavor to highlight those people or communities who are driving REAL action.

We hope their stories inspire you, and more importantly that they spark hope.

Our fourth Story of Hope - is shining a spotlight on Understory - an environmental education and zero-waste organisation founded by Alex Konieczka.

"Understory was founded to...

In 2015, leaders from 193 different countries agreed on 17 global goals they felt the world needed to achieve by 2030.

The main goals of SDG 16 are to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels.

It is of course that today we write this blog with a heavy heart.

Just 6 years away from our target date of the 2030, this goal seems more unachievable than ever.

In 2022, over 108 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide, the war in Ukraine played a role on enhancing this number to 2.5 time higher than a decade ago. With no signs of an end to the Russian invasion, and the added conflict in Palestine and Israel, we are not only failing to improve to achieve this goal, we are actually regressing.  

Wars amongst countries happen for many reasons including economic, territorial, religious, political, civil, revenge, and ideological...

In 2015, leaders from 193 different countries agreed on 17 global goals they felt the world needed to achieve by 2030. The thirteenth of these goals is Climate Action which focuses on the need to adopt urgent measures to stop climate change.

Goal 13 calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. It is intrinsically linked to all 16 of the other Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

The focus of this goal is on action - we're living in a time where action is needed. This action is on two fronts, both mitigation and adaptation. We need to reduce our impact and realise that there's some climate change built into the system now and so we need to be able to adapt to this.

Why is goal 13 important?

Today, climate change is affecting every country in the world. In an assortment of ways we are being impacted by climate change, and unless action is taken, this can only get worse tomorrow.

Some of the impacts we are...

In collaboration with the Confederation of Tourism & Hospitality (CTH) Fifty Shades Greener has created the first Level 4 certificate in environmental sustainability management in hospitality. 

 This is the first qualification of its kind to be regulated as an official qualification on the Ofqual framework with the first green manager awarded the qualification in April of this year!  

This is truly a pinch me moment for me, having suffered from impostor syndrome for years, to have one of my programmes validated in a framework of education is an amazing achievement.  

FSG was born out of the hospitality sector, with all people in my team having come from a background in hospitality, and our educational programmes respond to an urgent need to address the sector’s environmental impact, attract new talent and reduce cost. 

Reducing carbon emissions should be something that becomes paramount in our daily routines if we...

“Fly if you like, I won't judge you” was a statement that Greta Thunberg gave to The Sunday Times Magazine as she turned 18.

This sentence really got me thinking about influence and divisive ideals and opinions. Something we are seeing more and more in modern society in the midst of this Trump era, is the rise of the far right all over the world and more worryingly - extremism. 

The definition of polarising is ‘to cause something, especially something that contains different people or opinions, to divide into two completely opposing groups: “The debate is becoming polarised and there seems to be no middle ground.”’

We have all seen first hand the damage that a destructive leader can do during Trump’s presidency, culminating in the assault on the Capitol Building on January 6th. 

Radicalism or fundamentalism of any “idea” is never a good path to follow. We need to allow that as humans,...