Three local businesses have been working towards a solution to reduce the impact of tourism on the environment and achieve a more sustainable industry.
The Little Big Hotel Group comprising of Les Douvres, Fleur du Jardin and the Peninsula Hotel, have been working with a local environment and sustainability company Blue Parameters to become more sustainable in their operations. With a desire to eliminate single-use plastics from the hotels, Blue Parameters approached Guernsey Seaweed following the success of the seaweed hand sanitiser, to see if they could come up with a solution to reduce the reliance on single-use plastic bottles from bathroom products.
Guernsey Seaweed founder Ben Tustin explains: “We’ve known for many years that the properties in seaweed are good for the skin, rehydrating and nourishing as we’ve seen with our existing moisturizer and serum products. However, to produce shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and soap presented a unique challenge.”
The base seaweed within the products is known as ‘Irish Moss’ or Carrageen (Chondrus crispus). It can find its way into all sorts of products, even beer. But it was during the pandemic that it was first used by Guernsey Seaweed to make hand sanitiser.
“We learnt that Chondrus Crispus is a versatile seaweed and given the right conditions, very stable and retaining its health benefits over time. Following some experimenting and nearly 100 variations across the product range we have produced a locally manufactured and grown seaweed shampoo, conditioner, soap and shower gel.”
Managing director of the Little Big Hotel Group Charlotte Walker has been delighted with the results, “We all want to be more sustainable and make the right choices and often those choices can be more expensive but working with Guernsey Seaweed and Blue Parameters we have a truly sustainable solution that is commercially viable in its own right. The dispensing bottle we are using are sustainably sourced and knowing that the product will have originated from our very shores makes this a rewarding project”
The products of Guernsey Seaweed will be dispensed using refillable bottles throughout the rooms and the soap product will also be used across the public bathrooms as well. Guernsey Seaweed will provide the products in large, reusable containers that can refill directly into the individual dispensers.
The scale of the saving to the environment is significant as Blue Parameters director James Scott-Anderson says, “This approach by the Little Big Hotel Group demonstrates the value of planned sustainability. To combine supporting local businesses, using natural resources and permanently saving 42,000 single-use plastic products a year is an exceptional achievement. It sends a clear message and sets a new standard environmentally for the industry.”
The full installation across all three hotels will be completed by the end of July.
