163: Ice Bucket Investigation
Aurora Dawn Benton is a sustainability consultant and author of Exponential Impact: Harnessing Human Potential to Drive Sustainability in Organizations. With a diverse career spanning tech, finance, education, and hospitality, Aurora is known for food waste reduction, data-driven sustainability, and workforce engagement strategies. Susan and Aurora talk about rolls, melons, and expensive trash.
Episode Highlights:
Changing the Hospitality Mindset: Aurora explains how sustainability in food and beverage goes beyond cost-cutting. By reimagining food services, event planners can transform dining from "calories between sessions" into meaningful experiences.
Overcoming the BEO Nightmare: Banquet Event Orders (BEOs) need a redesign! Aurora shares her vision for streamlining these documents to cut down on waste, reduce costs, and enhance guest experiences.
Empowering Line-Level Staff: Aurora emphasizes that line-level employees are critical for sustainability success. From dishwashers to banquet captains, these staff members hold the keys to impactful change—and Aurora dives into strategies for engaging them.
The 80/20 of Waste Reduction: Instead of tackling every waste item, Aurora advocates a focus on the 20% of items—like bread and pastries—which make up 80% event food waste, sharing some eye-opening case studies on how small changes led to big savings.
Future of Sustainability in Hospitality: Predicting increased regulations and data requirements, Aurora says the future will demand both tech-driven efficiencies and genuine human engagement, particularly in the people-centric field of hospitality.
Food Waste Resources for Hotels
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