How Sustainable Hospitality Practices Can Boost Your Business Profits

You are listening to the Boostly podcast. We help hosts all over the world discover the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, have the confidence to go out there and get some more direct bookings. Today you're going to discover how eco friendly changes can support your bottom line and ultimately where to start with it all. And let me introduce to you a very special guest indeed, someone who I've been looking forward to speaking to, who I've listened to many times. Today we have Bob Garner joining us and I'm really excited, as I say, if you don't know who he is, he's a thought leader on environmental issues. He's the coordinator of Tourism Declares Climate Emergency. He's the founder of Green VR Events. He's a short term rental host who owns a short term rental with sustainability at its core. It's called Castel Derfiki. Did I pronounce that right, Bob?

Not bad, not bad.

Okay, not bad. And he's also environmental, which is a one stop shop for short term rental operators interested in sustainability. So we're going to be talking a lot about sustainability today and all the things that you can do as a host which is going to help you and your guests at the end of the day. So thank you and welcome along, Bob.

Great, thank you very much, Liam. It's great to be here.

Lovely to talk to you. So first of all, Bob, I know I've given you a bit of an introduction, but if you can just add to that, just anything you'd like to mention and to also add to the end of that, why you do what you do.

Yeah. So we run Casaldi Fici, myself and my husband, we live in Italy. We moved from London 18 years ago and bought a derelict farmhouse in Royal Le March in Italy and converted it into self contained luxury eco friendly holiday apartments. And at the time, 18 years ago, we didn't know really much about environmental issues in relation to short term rentals, but we knew we wanted to do something. And essentially what we've done over these years is just build up our expertise and our knowledge about what works in short term rentals around sustainability. Some things work, some things don't. How you communicate with your guests, what the touch points that most interest them, how you can make money by being environmentally sustainable. And we've put all that in place and honed it and fine tuned it over the years and got to the point where we have a really deep understanding now about sustainability and short term rentals. And obviously I've gone on then to do other Things with green VR events which we can talk about, and environmental, both of which are bringing sustainability to our industry and helping different people in our industry to be sustainable, to make money out of sustainability and to do the right thing for the industry. Because as an industry, we're part of tourism, which accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gases. Everyone knows about the climate emergency. We don't need to go into the details here, but our industry has a role to play. We are responsible for some of those emissions and then we need to start thinking how we going to get those emissions down. So one of the key targets that people don't hear about a great deal in any industry is that everybody, every industry, every business, everybody in the world, we need to bring our emissions down by 50% 50 50% by 2030 so that we can stay on track to reach the targets of 2050 that many people have heard about. So without going into the technicalities, what that means is in most short term rental businesses are not really yet doing anything around sustainability. They're not even probably aware of that target. So what we've got to do is get people talking about that target, understanding that target, understanding their emissions, and then starting to see how they can bring their emissions down while at the same time growing their business and attracting new customers. Because at the end of the day, we've got to still be successful businesses. So, you know, that's what we've put into place in the last 18 years. And that's what I preach and talk about and try and persuade and control people to get involved in because it's the right thing to do for them, it's the right thing to do for their customers and it's the right thing to do for the planet.

I absolutely love that. I do. You know, I said before this, I've followed your talk for a while and you know, it's one of those things which everybody needs to get involved with this. And one of the worries I certainly have as a short term rental host is how do I do that without costing myself more in most instances? Um, how do eco friendly practices really help short term rental owners? What, how does it make a difference to their bottom line?

Well, it makes a difference in a number of ways. You know, first of all, you can save some money on certain initiatives, so the actual fact of taking some eco steps will save you money and that might be because it reduces your costs or it might be that you get, and I know it's something dear to your heart. And on this podcast you get a lot more direct bookings. And when you get a lot more direct bookings, then it reduces the commissions that you need to pay to the OTAs and increases your return on investment and makes you more successful, have people coming back and you get really much better quality reviews. So for instance, here we are at Casaldi Fici here in Italy. We have a 90% book direct rate, we have a 65% return rate. And, and we get referrals on top of that. And we built that around sustainability and obviously great customer service. The two must go hand in hand. But when you can build a business like that, you attract guests who are looking for those sorts of stays. Guests come and they attracted to the fact that you're doing the right thing for the environment and they're playing their part. And I can talk about what that actually means in a moment. And they go home more satisfied and happier that they've had a great holiday, but they've also done it more environmentally friendly and that they've played a part in that. And then that casts over into reviews as well, because they're more likely to give you a review, they're more likely to give you a better review and they're more likely to give you a more nuanced review, which talks about the depth of the customer experience and what you're trying to do in giving back to the planet, giving back to the community, doing the right thing. And what's really interesting is that, you know, all you're really doing at the end of the day is you aligning your business values and the way you run your business with the values of the customers who are looking to stay with you. And that's when you hit the sweet spot, when you get people who come and stay with you and they're thinking, well, this is great. You know, Bob has the same ideas that I have. He wants to do the same things I want to do. He's got those principles. I'm feeling really comfortable here. This is a great place to stay. I, I want to come back, I want to recommend it to my friends. And this is all part of the rationale around being sustainable is attracting yourself, being attractive to those customers who want to stay sustainably. Because what we're seeing in the data that comes out from booking.com and Expedia is that around 80% of consumers who are surveyed would like to stay sustainably in their next short term rental. It doesn't mean that they will, but they would like to do that. And even if it was only 50% of that, if it was only 40% of people looking to stay sustainably. That is a huge demographic out there. And what I'm always saying to people and what we've learned is by building some sustainability practices into your business, branding yourself as sustainable, and that's really important. You need to brand yourself, you need to blog about it, you need a page on your website, you need to let people know that you're out there and that they can find you without greenwashing. That's really important too. And then you can attract those customers. But to come back to your original question, what you need to be doing is I think first doing some of the low hanging fruit, doing some of the easy, quick wins that you can do without spending any money, but that you can start to pivot your organization to being greener and genuinely greener and talking to the consumer about what you're doing and also being really, really honest. At the end of the day, you know, you put on a page on your website and you say, we've done X, Y and Z and next year we're going to do A, B and C. Nobody's going to criticize for that. Nobody's expecting you to be perfect from day one. What they're looking for is that you've taken some serious steps and that you have some genuine intention that comes from the heart, that you're going to take it further and you're going to do more and people will be really pleased with that. You don't need to greenwash, you don't need to exaggerate it, you don't need to pretend it's any more than it is. We're all on a journey and everybody understands that some of us are further ahead than others. But it's never too late to engage with this topic and start to think about what you can do. And that's why, you know, I talk all the time about do it for the right business reasons as well as doing it for the planet and doing it for the customers. Do it for yourself because you can be more successful.

I mean, it really does align to what the demand is out there at the moment is people like you say want to stay more sustainably, so let's help them have that choice. And I hadn't thought of it from that side of things before where you, I've always got a slogan which is your vibe attracts your tribe and having those people who you've got your values which is shown in your business, in the very fabric of your business, when they come and stay with you, they feel they've found their place which is really cool.

If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boostly and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only your niche, but could be in your location as well. Boostly has helped over 2000 hospitality businesses all over the world increase their direct bookings. And if you are interested then all you need to do is go to boostly. B o-ostly.co.uk call and booking an appointment with one of our sales team.

I guess one of the things which people listening to this are going to be asking, well, okay, so I want to make a difference. Where do I start? What, what, what couple of actionable things can I do straight away to really help towards sustainability?

Okay, so one of the things I always say first is do one of the simple, easy and zero cost things and that would be around energy. Energy is one of the biggest parts of your carbon footprint. You know, whether wherever you are in the world, whether you're in a hot place or a cold place, the energy that you consume is a really one of the biggest, the biggest part of your footprint. So tackle that first but tackle the element that won't cost you any money. So this isn't necessarily about putting solar panels on the roof. Great though that is. Or putting a heat pump in great that that is. But that that will cost you money at least in the early days. One of the first things to do is talk to your energy provider and switch to a green energy tariff. So what that means is you talk to your electricity company and you find out what sort of tariff you on. It'll be on your bill, it'll be on the website, you can easily look it up and then you say to them, I'd like to switch please to a green energy tariff should not cost you any more money. In most parts of the world there is that alternative. If there isn't switch providers, it's not really complicated. There's no interruption in your service. But normally you can switch to a green energy provider. Now of course, it's still the same electricity coming down the wires. All of a sudden you don't get green electricity arriving at your property. But what you do get is that your money to that company is used to invest in renewable technology, in renewable energy. And that is really important so that the more and More of us that do that, the more we're switching money away from coal and oil and gas and, and moving it to all renewable energies like wave power and solar power and wind power. And so that's a great thing that you can do. And then you put that on your website and you explain why you're doing it and people will appreciate it. And you talk to your guests about it. You know, you make sure it's really clear and open and you encourage your guests to do the same. Now, this isn't about nagging them or preaching to them, but when I'm talking to my guests and they often ask that very same question they, that you've just asked Liam. Oh, tell me one thing I can do. And I tell them that most of them have never thought about it and often they go home and they do something about it, you know, so step by step you can make some small changes like that. So that would be the first thing that I would say and it wouldn't cost you any money and you've made a significant dent in your carbon footprint.

I love it, I love it. And that's something that you say everybody can do. It doesn't cost you anything. I was thinking straight away that was going to be, you know, solar panels, like you say, things which are going to cost us money initially. But ultimately the nice thing is about this is that these small changes all add up. And this is the entire, the entire kind of rhetoric of it, isn't it? That it's not about solving it all in one go, it's about lots of little changes which stack to have that greater purpose, which is really cool. Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that one of the main reasons why people don't get involved in sustainability, but whether you're as an individual in your own home or a property manager or a host in short term rentals, is a lot of people are confused by it. They think it's a really difficult subject and some elements of it are more complicated. But what I always say to people, which is what you've just said, is take it one piece at a time, do one simple thing that's easy, a quick win, and then review and look and see what the impact is. See how you can talk about it in your business, see how you can brand your business accordingly, see the effect it has on the bottom line, whether you're getting more reviews and better reviews as a result of it, whether you're saving more money, whether you feel good in your own body about doing something for the planet and for your, for your customers and then take the next step and do something else. You don't have to rush everything. There are, there are 30, 40 different things you could do, but just take one or two steps and review and that's, that's once you get started. I always say it's a little bit like eating, as we say in the uk, crisps, and in America they say potato chips. It's a bit like sustainability, a bit like eating potato chips. Once you start, you just can't stop because you get a good feeling about it, you get a positive impact on your business and then you want to go on and do the next thing. So, yeah, I encourage everybody to give it a go.

What I love about it as well is with all of the OTAs, obviously we're a big advocate of direct bookings, but when it comes down to the OTAs, there's so many more options now to tick. So if you're looking for some ideas, you can always just go through their lists on sustainability and go, how many of these can I tick? How many of these could I put in place? You know that moving away from, from plastic straws and very basic things for, for some of them, but a lot of them are quite easy to make small changes, you know, renewable toiletries or refillable toiletries, all of that kind of thing, which is, is which, which is going to help places to get them from like, you know, places which are greener, more sustainable, more eco friendly when it comes down to it, from the suppliers, not just the cheapest one in the, in the supermarket.

So one, I mean, you could, as you say, Liam, you could go and look@booking.com, you don't have to be a member of booking.com, go and look at their eco badge, they've just enhanced theirs. Go and look at a specialist OTA that deals in sustainability, which would be something like Echo B and B. And they're a great one to look at because they specialize in eco friendly properties around the world. Or go and look at something like Holodoo, which some of your listeners might have heard of a smaller ota, but they're having some really interesting data coming back from their eco badging that they put in place about 18 months ago and they're really noticing that the click rate on their eco properties with an eco badge on their site and the click to book crate is much, much higher than for other properties are not eco badged. Now that's a great, a great bit of Data because what that's obviously saying is that their audiences are looking for those eco stays and they're clicking through and booking through for those properties. So you know, that's to say to property managers and hosts, well, if I start to do that, I can attract those, that audience as well. And that's exactly the way it should be. So, you know, start to think about how you can badge and brand yourself and talk about it. You have to be public about it. You have to put something on your website or else nobody's going to know. There's a great phrase, probably everyone's heard of greenwashing, where you pretend you're doing more than you're doing or the impact is greater than it actually is. There's another great phrase, green hushing. Green hushing. And that's when people are doing something around sustainability but they're not talking about it, they're not writing about it, they're not putting anything on their website. It's like, well that's great, but who's going to ever know if you don't, if you don't tell people? So I think it's really important that you do talk about it and brand yourself appropriately so people can find you, you know. So for example, I'll give you another example of, you know, what we do. We've got an EV charger of course on the car park here. We drive an electric car ourselves. Of course we get a lot of guests now coming with electric cars. Of course they want to charge up, but we get several guests each year who find us because they found that the charging station on one of the databases for charging stations that you sit that are all around the world and they map up that charging station on that database with the properties that they're looking to stay at. And they choose us because we fit the criteria they're looking for and we have a charging station which the other competitors don't have. And so there's a competitive advantage in having that charging station and attracting people who might otherwise have chosen property A, B and C. It's a really simple thing. It's not really expensive now to get those in place. In fact, we got ours for free. But then you appeal to the audience which of course is only going to grow over time with EV vehicles. So get in there and start to get an advantage over your local competitor and get people coming to you. If you, it's, it's a real no brainer.

I think that's such an important point because so many people say, hey, how can I Make my listings stand out. And here in the uk, I mean, there's lots of grants available for, for EV charges in my local area. About three months ago I'd done a search for, you know, it's now one of the place things that you can actually tick a box on some of the OTAs and say, hey, I'm looking for an EV charger. And there was only two or three places which popped up on the date side selected. But as soon as you unselected the EV charger, it went up to something ridiculous like about 150 places was available. So instantly you've got a, you know, a captive sort of audience who want one of those three places if they've got an electric vehicle and there's a real brief window to really go and, you know, invest in this, in this sort of EV charges and if you can, you know, get these people to come to your property. And of course once you've got that, that can be used for, for years and years as more electrical vehicles sort of enter the road. So yeah, one thing that I'd love to ask is, and this is probably from my own experience, sometimes guests don't always leave the places. They don't even separate recycling and things like that. How do we speak to our guests? How do we communicate that we are expecting them to be eco friendly as well?

Well, we're fortunate that we live on site so we see our guests every day, we interact with them, we socialize with them, we sit in the garden drinking, dine with them, we host a pizza party each week. So we bring them all together and chat and socialize so they become close to us and that communication is easier. And I guess in this instance they feel somewhat more obliged to be more organized and civil about how they leave a place because they know we're on site and they've been with us all week. So, you know, it's like you wouldn't trash your friend's house, they wouldn't go and trash our house. But I think for a lot of hosts who of course are not on site, you need to think of other imaginative ways to do that. I think one of the best ways is to use your digital guidebook. If you've got a digital guidebook, we recommend touchday. But of course there are lots of other great guidebooks out there and start to write about, not just on your website, but write about what you're doing sustainably wise in your guidebook. And the touchday Guide has actually got some default settings around giving back to the community and sustainability. So you just adapt them to your own particular needs there. And obviously this guidebook is going out to the consumer, to the guests before they arrive, so already they can find out about what you're doing. I mean, we do it through the guidebook, we do it through the website, we do it through email, we do it through post email. At every touch point that they're finding about it, there is printed information in the apartments. So they're seeing it front and center all the time. But you know, if you don't necessarily have to go that far, but certainly I think saying something in the, in the email when you're confirming everything in the digital guidebook where you can talk about the, what your philosophy is, what you're trying to do. You know, we talk about single use plastic and recycled toilet paper and refillable containers and eco products and the organic garden and the list goes on and on. And you can tell people about it and help educate them before they arrive. And then when they get here, it's no surprise and they're used to it and they understand, oh well, this is how we deal with the recycling. It's important to do it because if we do that we can reduce waste and we can reduce pollution, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's about bringing the guest into the experience without nagging them or preaching to them. And it's almost saying, can you just help me be better if you do this, we can be better together and let them be a partner with you in that process. And most people are reasonable people and they're going to go along with you and they're going to be supportive of you. In fact, most of our guests, even if they've not come for the eco side of it, they go home knowing a lot more about the eco side. And it always gives me a great buzz when they get home and they write to me and they say, oh, we've just ordered our box of who Gives a Crap toilet paper, for example. And so we're on that road now, which is also good because one of the other things that I think is also important around sustainability, for me it goes slightly wider than that. It's about how you spend your money as a business, the goods and the services that you purchase. So who Gives a Crap is a great example. And I'm smiling because there's a box of it just off to the screen. They, they're an Australian company, they do recycle toilet paper. Some of your listeners will have heard of them, but they give 50% of their profits to build toilet facilities in the developing world for people who don't have them. So they're a company who are giving back. So if you can use your purchasing power to give to a company who's also doing good, and it's the multiplier effect then of your, of your business, because, you know, we're a relatively small business with just six units, but we can multiply our effect through our guests and through who we can contract to do with services and products, etc. So I always think that's a really interesting aspect. And to give you one more example, when we write to our guests and confirm the price before they book, we add on a €30 supplement. It's optional and it's explained, it's optional in all the materials. And we say to them why we're doing it, that we're going to offset, partially offset their carbon for their transport and getting to us. And we will match it pound for pound, dollar for dollar. So they give €30, we give €30 and we give that to a company called Ecology to support environmental activity. And the interesting thing, Liam, is, that's fascinating, I think, is that in all the years we've been doing it, in all those years, not one customer has ever said, I don't want to pay it. It's written as optional. Just let us know if you don't want to pay it. Not one in all those years has ever said that. And that tells me something about the mindset of people who are looking to be more sustainable and even if they're not, their ability to go along with you and help you be more sustainable. So I think that it's out there. We're pushing in an open door. We just need people to engage with it and they're usually willing and, and able and ready to do so. So I think your, your listeners have got nothing to lose by getting involved. And, and obviously, you know, we have the, the products and the services and the help on board with environmental, which I guess we'll, we'll talk about.

Definitely we'll, we're going to come on to that. And I think your, your point about just sparking that conversation and you've either got the people who are pushing to do it or everybody else will just go, do you know what? I can see this is becoming the norm. I'm going to, I'm going to do this now, which is so important because ultimately it is about just that change of, hey, this is the norm to be sustainable, not to not be Sustainable and just switching, I mean some of the things that you mentioned there that we've done, which I didn't even think about, like we switched to bamboo based toilet paper, you know, it's a little bit more, but easier to, you know, sort of less, less harmful and even things like there's a lot of initiatives like one tree planted for every guest that stays with us. We donate towards that and again we match that as well. So this, this two trees, basically just a couple of dollars is all it is that, that, that goes towards planting these, these trees. But there's all these different aspects to, to consider and I'm actually excited talking about this, thinking of all the different things we can do as hospitality, as owners and hosts. And actually a lot of this does save us money in the long term. Like you say, the, the less energy used, any of these products that we're putting money back into, ultimately it might seem like it costs more, but if you've got more people who are happier staying giving you better reviews, you're going to be getting more income, which is cool. So there's a couple of things I want to go into. I want to dive into first of all, what you think the future for hospitality holds and then we'll dive into, you know, where people can turn to, to get the information they need. So what is your thoughts on the future of tourism and hospitality? How do you think things are going to look in say, 10 to 20 years?

Well, I mean, tourism, hospitality is clearly going to grow as more and more people in the world have access to funds and resources that they didn't have before. You know, people in the developing world are getting richer quite rightly, and that's great. But they will of course have that same appetite of wanting to travel, wanting to see the world and have those experiences and absolutely they should. So tourism, aggregate tourism is only going to grow from my perspective. What I'd like to see happen hopefully in my lifetime is that we find a way of being more sustainable about that tourism and that we have a lighter footprint on the planet. Because clearly I think everybody would acknowledge that in most parts of the world now there is some strain, there's some over tourism or there's some impacts on the environment and you know, maybe we can keep it within manageable levels. But if, if the number of tourism grow, tourists grow by 30% over the next 10 years, then can we still manage that and do it equitably and fairly for communities, for the planet and for, and for the quality of the experience for the travelers as well. So that's the dichotomy. I think tourism will grow and there'll be a lot more of it, but it's how we can manage and balance that with sustainability so that people still have a great experience but we don't mess up the communities and mess up the planet because, you know, we're at a very fragile state at the moment and we're nowhere near getting it sorted. So that's a concern to me. But you know, I'm always an optimist and I hope that we will find those solutions and get people on the right track 100%.

The time is now, isn't it, to start making those changes for, for that future.

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So if I was a host, where can I turn to to get more information on, you know, sustainability? What is environmental?

Yep, okay, absolutely love to talk about it. So I launched Environmental nearly a month ago now and the genesis was from a speech I gave at the Vacation Rental will summit in Porto last year and there were 500 property managers in the room and I was on stage speaking about sustainability and I got them all to stand up and I wanted to make a demonstration about where people's minds were around sustainability. So I asked them two questions. The first one was stay standing. If you believe sustainability should be part of your business. And these are property managers managing many, many properties is 99% of people stayed on their feet and they're all nodding. Yeah, we believe sustainability is important, we need to do something. But then you ask the killer question. The next question number two is stay standing. If you've already done something around sustainability, 95% of people sit down, they haven't done anything. And that was for me, the wake up call which the gaps gap between people's aspirations of wanting to do something and, and their ability to deliver it around sustainability. They're not climate deniers, they're not stupid people. They're clever, intelligent, articulate, Property managers and hosts and professionals in the industry. But sustainability somehow doesn't come to the top of the agenda. They don't get to deal with it. And when I drilled deeper into this in one on one conversations and I already knew the answer, but it became really clear was that people are confused around sustainability. They don't know what to do and they don't know where to start. So what happens is they don't do anything. Inertia sets in, it gets put into the too difficult to deal with box and they don't get round to it. Now, I spoke before about the 2030 target and reducing emissions by 50%. It's only seven years away. We haven't got time to leave these people, leaving the topic of sustainability in the too difficult to manage box. We've got to get them out of that box and get them into action. And so I decided that there didn't appear to be the right tools, resources, techniques, information, ideas, all the things that you talk about on Boostly around direct bookings and being successful. We talk around in environmental in the same way, but with an environmental focus. And, and the idea is that we'd bring all the resources, all the information and everything into one spot. So if you were in short term rentals and you wanted to know about sustainability, you only had one place to go to. It's free for everybody. So there are no barriers to entry. And that was really important because we didn't want anybody feeling reluctant to get in because they couldn't afford it or didn't want to pay the money. So people come to the site and everything is free there, all the resources, all a roadmap to get them from zero to hero on sustainability. Webinars, case studies, blogs, news, events, everything sustainability wise, how to measure, how to carbon offset, everything they could possibly want. What we tried to do is take my knowledge and other people who've helped me and bring it all together and take every possible scenario that people could be in and give them a solution to that. So the strap line is signposting sustainability for vacation rentals. So we're trying to signpost people so that they can see what the benefits are. The business benefits are of involving themselves in sustainability and getting them on that road that I spoke about earlier and taking those first couple of baby steps and talking about it and reviewing and seeing how effective that can be. And so we very much taught the language of business, but what the advantages are for doing it. But then we give them the practical tools and techniques and information to get them started. And get them on that road. And that's essentially what it is because it seemed to me there were lots of diverse and different resources on the Internet, but nothing directly for short term rentals. So all the language, all the information is all focused on short term rentals and we're trying to give people all that they could possibly need. And we do that through the support of our partners and sponsors who help finance it. And I wanted to pick up just one on one thing you said earlier, Liam, in an observation, you were quite right, you know, that sustainability will be, you know, the norm. It will be the minimum expected in the future. You know, I'm an old guy and I remember going on holiday before there was WI Fi and perhaps some of your older listeners do too. Now, you wouldn't go on holiday if there wasn't any WI Fi. That would be totally unacceptable unless it was rebranded as that for a particular reason. It's now an absolute given that it's like having running water, that there'll be good quality WI Fi when you go and stay somewhere, it will be like that. For eco standards in the future, we are all going to have to do it. And if you don't do it, ultimately it will be imposed on you by regulation or, or by law and therefore get involved now and tap into those resources and pivot yourself towards sustainability. Because what we want, what the industry needs, we don't need 10 or 100 or even a thousand people doing it perfectly or near perfectly. We need everybody doing it a little bit imperfectly. And that aggregate total is much more significant in moving the dial on sustainability. If everybody, as you were talking before, can play their part and do a little bit, we make a much bigger impact on reducing the emissions of the whole industry. And that's what we need to achieve. So that's what environmental is there to help facilitate.

Wow. I mean, that is, it is amazing. And there's so many good points there, Bob, which I just want to draw everybody's attention back to that. You know, those 95% of people sat down after saying, well, what are you doing about sustainability now? And they say that action is the difference between the metaphysical and the physical. So all they need to do is just, you know, 95 people just take a tiny little nudge, a little change within their business, so they're all doing something sustainable and that is the difference. That is what is going to get us there. Which, you know, everybody listening to this can make one or two little changes. And yeah, I'm, I'm excited, certainly. So where can people find, you know, where do people need to go to find out about Environmental?

Okay, so just search envirorental Earth. So envirorental Earth and just Google it, you'll find us. Or seek me out on LinkedIn. You find my LinkedIn profile. Bob Garner. I'm usually writing about sustainability most days on LinkedIn and we're, of course, I'm on all the other social platforms as well. So, yeah, reach out to us. You can email us at infovirorental Earth. Let us know what you're doing, what you'd like to do, what you need, and we'll try and help you.

You know what? And there's no reason for people not to do this, you know, to take action on this. That'll take a second to do is free to do. And certainly I'll be signing up straight after this. So thank you so much, Bob. As we come to the end of these, we love to just ask a question which always sticks with us, which is do you have a mantra or a saying that really resonates with, with you, one which, you know, sort of sticks in mind and one that you'd like to share with with any of our listeners?

Yeah, for me, and it's on Environmental's website. It's a quote from Jane Goodall, who's the naturalist, and she says, you can all make a difference or we can all make a difference. You just have to decide what difference you want to make. And that's always a mantra that stood by me because you just have to decide what it is that you want to do in your personal life, in your business that can make a difference. Whether it's around sustainability, whether it's around helping somebody, whether it's around doing something in your community. There's a zillion different ways you can put that and bring that to life. And so I just encourage people to think, you know, what can you do to, to, to make a difference somewhere in the world today.

Fantastic. And what a nice way to, to bring things to an end. So thank you so much, Bob, for joining us today. I feel first of all excited and that there is hope for sustainability and you know, that we know exactly where to turn to now, so hopefully our listeners as well do so as well. We'll share all the information that you've given us in the show notes. Was there anything we missed or any final comments before we bring it to a close?

No, no. I would just really encourage people to, to engage. It doesn't cost you any money and you can take some baby steps that fit in with your lifestyle, with your business, with what you have to achieve. Taking one step review and see how you go. It's that first step you need to take that's often the most difficult. Once you're in, you'll be in. And I always say it's that lovely drug, those potato chips, you just won't be able to stop eating them. So come in, join us. The water's lovely.

And the benefit is, of course, for those doing it early, first Mover Advantage, where you've got your sustainability credentials on your websites, on your Direct Book and Boostly, hopefully website, you know, you can then show off what you're doing and encourage more people to come and stay and feel good about their stays. And I really love what you said earlier on about, you know, guests are going away, really understanding a little bit more. So the effect isn't just within our businesses, but it's, you know, sort of within the wider community, which is amazing. So thank you so much for spending your time with us today, Bob, and thank you to. If you're listening to this on the Boostly podcast, we know there's a lot of places you can put your attention. We really appreciate you putting it with us. So thanks again, Bob, and yeah, we'll see you on the next one.

My pleasure.