So if sustainability issues aren’t increasingly on your companies’ agenda then you risk losing customers and potential employees to competitors who ‘are’ focusing on them.Īlthough there have been some amazing hospitality operators championing sustainability issues for many years, including retailer and café Planet Organic, who opened its first site in 1995 and now offers an ‘Unpackaged’ concept in four of its seven London stores, it is only really since Blue Planet II that reducing single use plastic has been on the agenda of many more hospitality operators. Findings by workplace benefits specialist Umum in its ‘Future Workplace Report 2018’ highlights that 59% of people want to work for a company with a powerful social conscience. If the UK is impacted by the legislation, which would come in to effect from 2021, as well as the complete ban of single-use plastic products, the use of plastics for which no alternatives currently exists (mainly food packaging) would also need to be reduced by 25% by 2025 and action would have to be taken by 2025 to collect and recycle 90% of beverage bottles.īut legislation or not, reducing the use of plastic in your business makes strong business sense with research, by sustainability consultancy Futerra, showing that if a brand isn’t helping consumers improve their environmental and social footprint then they’re in danger of disappointing 88% of them. With the ongoing uncertainty regarding Brexit, it is possible, although not certain, that further EU legislation would also apply to the UK if a directive is made before our exit from the EU is complete. Exemptions will be included to ensure those with disabilities or medical needs have access to straws, which will be sold in registered pharmacies and allowed to be provided on request by catering establishments. Legislation around single-use plastic is now on its way for the UK, with Environment Secretary Michael Gove confirming this month a ban on plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds from April 2020. The impact plastic pollution can have on our oceans highlighted in the 2017 series, led to the issue not only being brought to the fore in living rooms around the UK but also in company boardrooms, with many retailers and food service businesses since taking steps to reduce the amount of single-use plastic consumed in their businesses. The issue has again been in the spotlight following BBC One’s ‘ Blue Planet Live’ in March and the ‘ Blue Planet II Live in Concert’ that has recently toured around the UK featuring film sequences from the award-winning TV series. But if you haven’t yet taken steps, since the award-winning broadcaster’s Blue Planet II highlighted the environmental need to reduce single-use plastic, then the time is very much now. As a hospitality operator, it’s highly unlikely that you haven’t felt the ‘ Attenborough effect’ on your business in the past couple of years.
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