ENGAGING YOUTH IN SUSTAINABLE HOSPITALITY

This week Beyond Bamboo attended the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance autumn summit in London, along with a panel of inspiring young people from the Global Youth Awards.

There was an insightful and important conversation between the panalists of inspirational young people. These young people really understand the issues and the importance, demonstrating clearly that now is the time for impactful positive change. 

Tiffany Kelly CEO of Beyond Bamboo hosted the panel of RoundTable Global Youth Ambassadors, each of whom shared their unique perspective on the importance of engaging the next generation on the journey to net positive hospitality.

"At a lot of these events, we talk about challenges. We talk about what we need in terms of actions and solutions. These young people are individuals who are already doing things, they're already putting themselves out there. And I personally find it incredibly inspiring to be around them".Tiffany Kelly

Tia Chauhan, Amy Meek, Ishaan Shah and Kit Murphy discussed the key ways they consider to engage the workforce for tomorrow. 

Tia Chauhan called the industry to action;

"You need to have diversity in this room to be truly sustainable, and to truly push forward the change, because by excluding women, by excluding young people, and by excluding certain races, you're not truly moving forward to a sustainable future".

Amy Meek commented:

"There's this big focus on the GenZ attitudes. A lot of the stereotypes of GenZ are things like sustainability, gender equality, and diversity. These should be principles of the workforce already, and they should definitely be the principles of the workforce of the future".

Kit Murphy highlighted;

"We see a million and one vague promises of 'we're going to be net zero by 2050' and they're just too far away to really be tangible. Companies make little fractional changes to show themselves to be better. But there's a lot of cynicism. Young people don't really trust that it's happening from the best place. They're concerned that it could be greenwashing". 

Ishaan Shah emphasised;

"We must not neglect the S in ESG. The hospitality sector has great potential in terms of catalysing more efficient action on protecting and promoting human rights. But there's also a very high risk of human rights abuses within the industry. So when we talk about the labour force, and when we talk about engaging young people, we're not just looking at tier one employees within the hospitality industry. You're actually responsible for all the workers in your supply chains".

Thank you to the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance for showcasing the importance of these young people's voices in the conversation.

Watch this space to find out how Beyond Bamboo and RoundTable Global will continue to faciliate the engagement of young sustainability leaders in the work of the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance.