St Austell have a heavy focus on cutting food waste across the entire business, with a goal of a 20% reduction of waste by 2025, compared to 2018. To achieve this target across their managed pub estate, St Austell have partnered with Olio, a food sharing app. St Austell are the first company in the pub sector to sign up to Olio’s food waste reduction scheme. With their services, they are able to donate leftover pub meals to people and families in the local communities, helping those in need while also reducing their wastage.
“We are proud to say we are zero waste to landfill in our managed estate. Overall waste in our managed estate is managed in the following ways:
– 37% general waste (to Suez) which goes back to the grid to generate electricity.
– 10% dry recycling (plastic, cardboard, paper).
– 22% food waste which went for composting.
– 1% wood which went for chipping to be used in gardens.
– 30% glass which was recycled.”
St Austell have been long term advocates for the cut of single-use plastics, and have implemented a strong rule on no single-use plastic use in their pub estate.
St Austell have also invested in 26 electric vehicle charging points, at head offices and select pubs. Their future target is to install 400 charging points across their estate (managed and tenanted) by 2028, which would include two EV points per pub, helping to enhance the South West’s EV network. They have invested heavily in renewable energy, by purchasing 100% REGO backed wind-generated electricity (including the managed estate, alongside investing over £450K into six solar arrays across the company, generating enough energy to power 95 average UK households for a year (352,872kWh). One of these arrays is on a managed house – the County Arms in Truro.
Every pub has a nominated champion to help drive St Austell’s initiative forward, with helpful display boards for teams back of house, stating the biggest areas of energy waste at that site and clear energy saving targets to work towards.
St Austell Brewery has pubs at the heart of communities across the South-West and they are committed to ensuring all their pub sites are welcoming spaces for everybody and that they are always giving something back to the local areas they operate in.
They continue to look at different ways to support the local and global environments, for instance, by partnering with organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society and hosting litter picks nearby pubs in their managed estate. Most recently the St Austell teams attended a beach clean at the Great Western Beach in Newquay and collected over 2,000 pieces of plastic and polystyrene.
“We will continue to invest in resilient and regenerative practices that generate positive impacts, in both our physical environment and communities.”
You can read more about St Austell’s sustainability commitment here.