Our tendency is to think in extremes, in all or nothing approaches. You're either sustainable or you're not. You're ready to talk about your progress or you're not. You're doing enough or you're failing. This episode is about all the other possibilities available to us when we resist the extremes and allow creativity to step in.The most honest, effective and sustainable place to lead from is the middle.

Drawing on the lotus growing through the mud, the permission to celebrate wins while acknowledging what's still in progress, and the practical reality of what it looks like to hold complexity without collapsing into either performance or paralysis, this is an episode about non-duality as a leadership practice.

It's a more accurate and courageous way of showing up, for your team, your guests, your operation and yourself. If you've been waiting until everything is perfect before you claim progress, this episode is for you.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

We've been operating under an assumption for decades: that sustainability costs money and profit comes first. This episode makes the case that the assumption is wrong and that for most hospitality businesses, not investing in sustainability is already costing more than investing would.

Category by category, we investigate the financial case: energy and water, where payback periods are often measured in months not years; waste and procurement, where what goes in the bin is a cost before it even gets there; staff retention, where Australian hospitality's 38.7% annual turnover is a crisis hiding in plain sight; and revenue and yield, where engaged staff, word of mouth, and corporate travel credentials are stacking up wins.

Then we look at what happens when all of these compound together over three to five years. And we ask the question that more operators need to be taking to their accountants: what is it actually costing us not to have started?

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

Most hotels know what their energy bill looks like but visibility on supply chain emissions are a little more hidden. This episode changes that. Starting with the basics: what Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions actually are and why Scope 3 is usually the biggest footprint and the most ignored as we explore the hidden emissions sitting inside every purchasing decision a hotel makes.

From the cloud in your teacup to the beef on your menu, from guest travel to linen supply chains, this is a practical and human look at what emissions reporting actually means for hospitality operators.

Whether you're in Australia navigating ASRS obligations, or operating in Southeast Asia where similar requirements are arriving fast, this episode makes the case for getting curious before it becomes urgent. The full value of the three layers of emissions work, compliance, operational integration and strategic narrative, is only realised when all three are in play. And the operators who start early are already building an advantage.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

Busy is not the same as effective. And yet in hospitality, and most of corporate Australia, the two have become almost indistinguishable. This episode makes the counterintuitive case that the most effective leaders aren't doing more. They're doing less, more intentionally. From the meeting that actually moves things forward versus the one that fills a calendar, to the pause before a decision that changes its outcome, to the team that starts the day with gardening and a cup of tea and outperforms the one running flat out. This episode looks at what operational effectiveness looks like when you stop mistaking motion for progress. When leaders design their systems for pace rather than urgency, the results are sustainable and often even better than expected. Staff stay longer and guests feel the difference. The output is better, not despite the slower approach, but because of it.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

Greenwashing is one of those words that gets thrown around as an accusation but most of it isn't intentional. It starts as a gap between what the marketing team says and what housekeeping actually does, between what the certificate claims and what the guest experiences when they arrive. This episode names the three patterns of greenwashing most common in hospitality: the marketing and operations disconnect, the certification shield, and the operators afraid of being accused of greenwashing so they say nothing and do nothing, leaving genuine work invisible. It also walks through the ACCC's eight principles for environmental claims, one of the most practically useful documents available for any operator wanting to communicate their sustainability journey honestly. Because the antidote to greenwashing isn't silence and it isn't perfection. It's integrity. And integrity, as we've explored across this series, is simply the outside looking like the inside.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

ACCC Making Environmental Claims: A Guide for Business (2023)

The eight principles referenced throughout this episode.

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/greenwashing-guidelines.pdf

ACCC Greenwashing enforcement actions

The ACCC actively tracks and fines companies for greenwashing — their enforcement page shows real examples.

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/compliance-and-enforcement

Tourism Australia - Green Is Our Gold

The practical sustainability tool for Australian tourism operators referenced at the close of the episode.

https://www.tourism.australia.com/en/resources/campaign-resources/green-and-gold.html

Two Homes Episode 3: Why Compliance Won't Save the Planet

Referenced in this episode - compliance as a ceiling.

https://redcircle.com/shows/8676aa7c-60c7-4fd0-9e4d-82eaaccdf90c/episodes/729f542f-4729-49ee-9427-ad2e246deded

Two Homes Episode 6 - The Certification Trap

Referenced in this episode - certification as destination rather than direction.

https://redcircle.com/shows/8676aa7c-60c7-4fd0-9e4d-82eaaccdf90c/episodes/2eea7cab-2b8c-49eb-b89e-8bd70fe47c38

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

July 1st. Plastic Free July begins today and this episode has been eleven years in the making. From discovering the campaign in 2014, to launching six consecutive campaigns across hospitality and tourism teams across Cambodia, to finally bringing it to Sydney, this is the episode where the personal journey and the professional case come together. Because Plastic Free July isn't really about plastic. It's about what happens when a team has a shared goal, a clear timeframe, and permission to figure it out together. The plastic reduction is what comes out the other side. The culture, the pride, the camaraderie, that's what you're actually building.

This episode covers what Plastic Free July actually is, the five single use plastics worth focusing on, the science behind why reducing them matters more than most people realise, and the practical case for why running a PFJ campaign with your hospitality team this month is one of the most effective staff engagement and culture-building tools available. You don't need to care about plastic to run this. You need to care about your team. And if you're still hesitating... if not July, when?

Nature Medicine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04324-7

UWA official news release: https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2026/april/research-shows-fast-and-effective-way-to-reduce-plastics-in-body

After seven days, phthalate levels dropped by more than 44% and bisphenol levels fell by more than 50% compared to the control group.

The next Perth Trial will investigate plastic chemical exposure and fertility - a topic we touch on in episode 12.

Get your free guide to Plastic Free July for Hospitality Team: https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/pfj-for-teams

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

Scent is the only sense with a direct channel to the limbic system, the part of the brain that processes emotion, memory and safety. It's why the smell of a place can transport you instantly to another time. And it's why what hotels pump into their lobbies, spray in their bathrooms and wash their linen with matters far more than most operators realise.

In this first guest episode of Two Homes, sustainability leadership consultant Sarah Rhodes is joined by Alexx Stuart, founder of Low Tox Life, author, hospitality consultant and former fragrance industry insider, for a conversation about what synthetic fragrance is actually doing to hotel guests, to the staff working in those environments every day, and to the bottom line.

From phthalates and hormone disruption to the $33 billion annual cost of absenteeism in Australia, this episode makes the case that fragrance is not a finishing touch, it's a sustainability issue. And it ends somewhere hopeful: what genuinely beautiful, place-based, low tox scent experiences could look like in hospitality done well.

Connect with Alexx Stuart on LinkedIn.

Get this very generous fragrance guide that Alexx prepared to help you get started on revising how you do fragrance in your venue.

Take a closer look at what's good and what's bad in fragrance related products.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and planet, starts from the inside out. Two homes: the one we inhabit within, and the one we all share.

If you'd like to ask a question:

💌 Email - connect@plasticfreesea.co

🎙️ Drop a question in the comment box on Spotify

Sign up to emails to get insights, event invitations and opportunities to connect and be inspired to integrate sustainability for good 🌟

https://sarah-rhodes.myflodesk.com/news

Two Homes is part of my business, Plastic Free Southeast Asia - an Australia Pacific specialist sustainability leadership consultancy, that is your partner in all authentic and aligned sustainability for tourism businesses and boards.

Please rate, subscribe and review to help more people find the meaningful conversations, insights and more guests into the conversation that helps you grow your business, and tend to your wellbeing, sustainably.

Follow on your preferred platforms:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreeseaa/

Sarah on LI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rhodes-67a9b724/

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel