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.

Intro and outro music: Brooks, Kai Engel

What does it actually look like to practice what you preach? This episode turns the lens inward, not on a client or a hotel, but on the business and my life. Ten episodes in, this is an honest look at what personal sustainability means beyond the professional, how comfort can become the enemy of change, what it takes to stay resourced enough to keep doing meaningful work, and why the inner home needs as much attention as the outer one. Drawing on eleven years in the field, a pandemic that forced an uncomfortable journey inward, and the slow integration of movement, presence and mindful consumption into daily life, this episode explores the thread that runs beneath everything: when we genuinely take care of ourselves, taking care of the planet starts to feel less like obligation and more like the natural thing to do. Not perfect or righteous, just integrated.

Two Homes is for leaders who know that lasting performance, for people and plane, 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

It's one thing to talk about sustainability. It's another thing entirely to see it alive in a team, not as a policy, not as a certificate on the wall, but as genuine pride, creativity and joy in how people show up for work every day. This episode gets concrete. From working with Treeline Urban Resort in Siem Reap, Cambodia, one of the most genuinely integrated sustainability examples I've seen, we explore what it actually looks like when sustainability stops being an add-on and becomes part of the culture. From back of house waste audits to a Plastic Free July waste-to-art competition that left an entire team beaming, this is the episode that answers the question that's been building across the series: does any of this actually work? It does. And this is what it looks like.

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

Eight episodes in and we've covered a lot of ground, compliance ceilings, burnout, certification traps, default systems. If you've been listening from the beginning, you might be feeling the weight of it. This episode is the exhale. Because the most important thing isn't having a perfect strategy or a complete overhaul, it's starting. Somewhere, anywhere, as long as you start. Drawing on a client story about a frustrated leader, a compost bin that became a cultural moment, and the very human difference between telling people what to do and actually communicating with them, this episode maps out what beginning really looks like in practice. Including the difference between a stop gap (mopping up the water) and a starting point that turns the tap. Plus three practical things you can do before next week's episode that won't add anything to your already full plate.

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

What if the most important sustainability metric in your organisation isn't carbon, water or waste but the state of the people doing the work? This episode gets personal. Drawing on six years of somatic movement practice, a pandemic that forced an uncomfortable journey inward and eleven years of watching sustainability professionals override their own signals in service of systems that weren't built to support them. We explore what it actually means to listen to the body as a source of data because the body feels the gap between what's written on paper and what's actually happening. It registers depletion, disconnection and fabricated urgency long before the burnout becomes visible. And when we learn to pay attention to that, when we slow down enough to let the inner and outer worlds come into conversation, something shifts. Not just personally, but in how we show up for the work that matters most. We measure carbon, water and waste. We don't measure depletion. This episode makes the case that maybe we should.

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

Getting certified is one thing. Living it is another. This episode draws on eleven years of working inside sustainability certification schemes to explore why so many hotels and organisations achieve certification and then quietly fall back into business as usual. From a luxury Bangkok hotel displaying a GSTC certificate that bore little resemblance to what was happening operationally, to a GM transition that unravelled months of deep sustainability work, the pattern is consistent and it is systemic. Not a failure of individuals, and not a failure of the schemes themselves but a failure of how certification is treated. As a destination rather than a direction. As a shield rather than a standard. This episode makes the case for certification done differently; embedded, continuous, and owned by the whole team rather than carried by one. Because certification should be the recognition of sustainability you already live, not the proof of sustainability you're performing.

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

Strategy won't save you. Policy won't either. What actually determines whether a hotel operates sustainably isn't what's written in the handbook it's what happens when nobody's thinking about it. This episode gets practical, looking at the default systems running quietly in the background of hotel operations: the thermostat nobody questions, the towel that gets replaced anyway, the amenities order that renews itself, the energy consumption nobody's tracking beyond the guest room. Drawing on real examples from the field, we explore why sustainable outcomes depend on system design far more than willpower and what it actually looks like to change the default so that the right thing happens automatically, for guests, for staff and for your bottom line.

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