Sustainable travel
Encourage your guests to walk or take public transport by giving them suggestions of walks or public transport routes. You could also give cycle hire information, or even provide bikes for your guests, if possible.
Energy
To save energy ensure all your lights and lamps have energy saving light bulbs and buy electricals, such as kettles, microwaves, TVs and washing machines, with a good energy efficiency rating. You could purchase a plug-in energy monitor to find out the usage of each device, or get a smart meter to keep a track of your energy usage.
Choose an energy company that provides energy from renewable sources. Some companies give offers for using electricity at certain times. Or perhaps you're able to invest in solar panels?
You may be in a position to offer an electric car charging point at your home (which you could charge extra for) or provide details of local charging points.
To ensure comfort for your guests (and saving you money) block any draughts from your doors and windows to prevent heat escaping.
The Energy Saving Trust is a useful website.
Support local businesses
Reduce the travel miles of the products you buy by using local produce where possible. This could be in the form of eggs and meat provided by a local farm shop.
If you are buying new furniture, furnishings or art work, do you have local crafts people or artists you could purchase these from?
Encourage your guests to stay local and provide them with details of local shops and attractions they could visit.
Lending
Guests may not always bring everything they need. To save them buying new items, lend them items such as umbrellas, travel adapters, chargers, baby items, etc. You can also direct them to places they can rent items such as pushchairs, bikes, etc.
Waste
The aim is to limit the amount of waste you produce and items you buy.
Opt to provide larger containers of soap, shampoo, shower gel, etc (which you can decant if necessary), or use refills where possible.
I provide a few snacks and drinks for my guests. To save on food wastage, I generally buy food I like so if guests don't eat or drink them they won't go to waste. I also freeze several items so they don't perish quickly.
Provide recycling bins for your guests. It is helpful to put a notice next to bin detailing what items can be recycled, as this can vary in different regions, and countries.
Sometimes guests leave items behind, which they no longer want. Quite often they leave food but I have also had guests leave clothes, suitcases, and even a kettle. Some items were broken and needed to be recycled or disposed of responsibly and some had life left in them to continue to be used.
I ask guests not to bin any tourist leaflets or literature they have collected as they can be passed to future guests.
Provide reusable cups, utensils, bags, etc. for when your guests are out, to save them getting single use items. Direct them to the Refill app (if applicable in your area).
You will find you get through quite a lot of bedding and towels. If they are still in fairly good condition you might be able to pass or sell these on, or items such as towels you could donate to local animal shelters, etc. The WasteNot List is a useful website to see where you can donate, sell and recycle these items.
Preserving
Try to maintain the life of your items by keeping on top of cleaning and fixing them before they become unusable.
If you're bored of an item, it doesn't match your decor, or it can no longer be used as it is, why not upcycle it, giving it a new lease of life. For example, to save buying new items, I painted chairs and furniture I had to make everything match. You could also do this if you were to buy second hand items.
I provide several different sizes of towels as guests have different preferences. To try to keep them nice for as long as possible, I don't want to wash them all every time if they haven't been used so I roll the guest towels up and put them in a basket. That way I know which towels haven't been used (as they are still rolled up in the basket) and only wash the used ones.
Eco friendly products
Cleaning is a big part of hosting and so finding cleaning products that are kind to the environment is ideal. Whether it's laundry detergent, anti bacterial sprays or bathroom cleaners.
Find the eco friendly cleaning products that work best for you. I've tried several different products and I'm not sure I've found the best answer yet. If you have any suggestions, please share in the Question of the Day: What are your cleaning hacks?
Try to avoid buying lots of plastic items as they will be harder to recycle at the end of their life. For example, look for rugs made with natural fibres and buy furniture made from wood.
Save Water
You will inevitably end up using more water when hosting so water saving devices, such as tap aerator, water saving shower head and a toilet flush water saver, will help a little to reduce the amount of water used. If you live in the UK, have a look at your local waterboard's website as many give free water saving devices.
If you're looking to change your taps in your sink, you may decide to choose push down taps which limit the amount of water used with each press. Or, if you're looking to change your toilet, have you seen ones that have a sink on top that uses clean water to wash your hands before it enters the cistern for the next flush?