- The Irish hospitality sector is teaching sustainability competencies without calling it that
- A study interviewed 15 owners, general managers, chefs and HR managers across Irish tourism businesses
- Hotels, restaurants, pubs and cafés in Ireland threw away 181,000 tonnes of food in 2024
- Around 99.6pc of Irish hospitality businesses are SMEs stretched for time, money and staff
- The study recommends naming the skills, sharing the load and measuring training effectiveness
The Irish hospitality sector has been quietly overachieving in sustainability, Fernanda Vergara of TU Dublin has claimed, with hotels and restaurants teaching sustainability competencies without calling it that. A study interviewed 15 owners, general managers, chefs and HR managers working in hotels, restaurants, visitor attractions, tour operators and organisations that promote tourism, ranging from small-to-medium-enterprises to large organisations. Every one of them was teaching sustainability competencies. Almost none of them called it that. In Ireland alone, hotels, restaurants, pubs and cafés threw away 181,000 tonnes of food in 2024.
Education for sustainable development is UNESCO’s approach to preparing people for problems like climate change, waste and inequality. Rather than teaching facts, it focuses on developing skills people need to act more sustainably. UNESCO came up with eight key skills, which it calls competencies: systems thinking, anticipatory, normative, strategic, collaboration, critical thinking, self-awareness and integrated problem-solving. In the workplace, all eight were found. Critical thinking turned up in every type of business, with owners and managers rethinking everyday routines to cut waste and energy use. Systems thinking was common too. Collaboration was the backbone of learning in smaller businesses. Most had no HR department or training budget, so staff learned by working with local farmers, growers, suppliers and other business owners. Values, what UNESCO calls the normative skill, also guided what businesses did. Self-awareness was important too. Although strategic, anticipatory and problem-solving skills came up too, they were weaker, appearing mainly in larger organisations, which have more time and money to plan ahead than SMEs.
Around 99.6pc of Irish hospitality businesses are SMEs, and many are stretched for time, money and staff. With summer so busy, training is often pushed back to winter. Businesses looking for outside help face a different problem: too much choice. There are so many courses out there that many do not know where to begin. The good news is that Irish tourism does not need to abandon its practical approach, just build on it. First, name the skills. A simple checklist could help managers spot where these skills already appear in daily work and turn them into clear learning goals. Second, share the load. Shared training groups and peer-mentoring networks, supported by Fáilte Ireland, local authorities and universities, would keep knowledge in the sector even when staff move on. Third, measure it, so businesses can tell whether training works.
SEO terms:
