Our Sustainability Lead

As part of Sustainable Septmeber, we sat down with our Sustainability Lead, Beth, to learn more about her career, her work and views on sustainability.

How did you get into sustainability as a career?

I have always been interested in sustainability in regard to animal welfare, I did a speech on battery chickens when I was 12 for a school speech competition (cool, I know). I have always been obsessed with food and ingredients and what makes ‘good food’.

I chose to do Geography as an undergraduate degree with many of my modules having a sustainability focus.

Following this, I did a teaching degree (before deciding that it wasn’t for me) and then lockdown hit and like so many people, I had a think about what I really I wanted to do and what I was genuinely passionate about.

I wanted to work in food, but not in a kitchen and started at Mercato Metropolitano (a sustainable community food market in London) as their Sourcing Coordinator, in charge of ensuring sustainable sourcing for all the traders. It all snowballed from there!

What does your day/week look like in your role?

It really varies. There’s a lot of looking in bins (glamorous) and ensuring our waste is being separated correctly.

Also ensuring we aren’t throwing away produce unnecessarily, we record our food waste separately to our waste company. The chefs separate our waste into preparation, spoilage, plate waste and buffet waste. This enables them to really understand what is being thrown away, what can be prevented and what other parts of an ingredient might be used in a dish, it’s been a big eye opener for all of us and some of the creativity on show has been amazing.

It also involves inputting data into our EarthCheck portal (EarthCheck is our chosen certification and benchmarking scheme), chatting to chefs about how we might improve the sustainability of our menu, or reduce the amount of food waste or speaking to front of house about how we communicate sustainability to our guests.

What inspires you to make a difference?

I think living by the sea really holds a magnifying glass up to climate change and how sensitive our planet is.

I see copious amounts of plastics on our shoreline with every walk to the beach and the storms we experience are growing with their force. It really highlights that changes need to be made in terms of how we live our lives. The Headland is iconic, we’re even on the Cornish monopoly board! If we are seen to be championing sustainability in Cornwall, then hopefully it might help to act as a catalyst for further change.

We also welcome over 100,000-day guests each year, which is a fantastic opportunity to show people what can be done in terms of sustainable hospitality. 

Most notable career moment?

In my previous role, I was interviewed for a Netflix documentary, judged national food awards, and was even on Japanese TV!

However, at The Headland I would say my most notable experience so far has been our initiative with The National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow, with them we’ve managed to help release over 500 baby lobsters. I’d say that’s pretty cool.

Favourite part of Cornwall to explore on your day off?

Cornwall is flooded with incredible chefs and food spaces and independents. Recently we’ve been exploring the south coast and St Mawes has been a highlight, I enjoyed a truly spectacular sandwich from Mr Scorse Deli, hired a little motorboat from the harbour and went on a little day trip exploring the different beaches along the south coast (weather dependent!!).

If I’m in Newquay, a trip to Polly Joke with my camera to see what wildlife I can spot – usually a seal or two.

A book, podcast or documentary that inspires you?

In terms of podcasts – I really like Fortnum’s Hungry Minds, there’s a particular episode with Julius Roberts that dove into seasonal eating and animal welfare.  The Sustainable Food Trust podcast, in particular the episode with Andy Cato who co-founded WildFarmed, he is an incredible voice for championing regenerative farming and moving away from harmful industrial farming.

The biggest challenges in your role?

I think there are the obvious challenges you’d expect, like getting the team onboard and forming a culture of sustainability but we are improving massively on this with 96% of our team believing The Headland values sustainability in a recent team survey.

Perhaps a challenge that isn’t so obvious is balancing guest experience with sustainability. We are a five-star hotel, and so our guests expect a certain level of luxury, i.e. a breakfast buffet, which has obvious sustainability challenges in terms of waste. However, I do think the mindset is changing within luxury hospitality, from sheer abundance to quality instead.

One thing we can all change in our daily lives?

Save energy by being mindful about switching off plugs that aren’t being used and using LED bulbs. Not only will you be saving energy and helping the planet but you’ll also save yourself some money too. We can definitely have more of a think about how we consume meat and the quality of the meat we consume.

It is hard in my role not to be too preachy, the challenge is to get people engaged with the topic so that they genuinely want to make small changes that affect the bigger picture.

One sustainability dream for the future?

I would love for everyone to become more connected to the food on their plate, if we were more connected to where food was coming from, I truly believe there would be less waste, higher quality of food and a better quality of life in general.

As Andy Cato and Wildfarmed like to say ‘fix food, fix the planet’.