A Year of Shifting Balance: Breakdown and Resilience

As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on a year that has been both deeply sobering and unexpectedly illuminating. Professionally and personally, this year has strengthened my belief that humanity stands at an inflection point. On one...

Brewing Sustainability, One Cup at a Time

Let’s talk about coffee. Not just any coffee, the kind that works towards restoring the planet while simultaneously caffeinating your mornings. Meet Watermark Coffee, a progressive Irish coffee company blending exceptional taste with environmental action. T...

Back in 2012, while working as the Sales & Marketing Manager of Hotel Doolin in West Clare, my General Manager told me to form a "green team" and apply for Green Hospitality Ireland certification. 

Excuse me but...what?!

To say I was apprehensive at the start would be an absolute understatement! 

How many plastic bottles of water or soft drinks do you purchase every month? Or every week or every year?

There is a lot of talk about reducing plastic as it continues to end up in our oceans and rivers, but there isn’t too much talk about the possible harmful effects that plastic might have on ou...

Odran Lucey, executive chef at the Rose Hotel in Tralee, Ireland, has become the first person in the world to successfully complete a brand-new qualification for Environmental Sustainability Management in Hospitality.

Fifty Shades Greener (FSG) and the Confederation of Tourism & Hospitality (CTH) j...

Many of our hospitality clients have asked what the best carbon offsetting projects are in Ireland, particularly as these businesses strive to become carbon neutral.  In a previous Opinion Piece, I have highlighted how I find carbon offsetting problematic: Carbon Offsetting - who can I trust? (fifty...

I am an advocate for taking personal responsibility when it comes to environmental sustainability. 

Every individual choice and action we take has consequences.

Take, for instance, our use of water. There is a perception that it is an abundant natural resource, however, it is limited. Of the 70%...

It is a place many of us love to be on a sunny day, or on our holidays – by the sea.  Looking out on that beautiful, vast horizon I normally find my problems become minute, but how often does it enter our minds that it is being overwhelmed with plastic pollution?  I fear this problem is very much “o...

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 ou...

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 s...

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 ...

In last week’s blog I spoke about personal accountability when it comes to Climate Change. 

Link to Blog; https://www.fiftyshadesgreener.ie/blog/climate-change-why-personal-responsibility-matters 

I also shared my own story of how I became empowered to start doing something about Climate Change my...