Hospitality heroes announced as Sustainability Champions
An award-winning popular pub in Northamptonshire, The Red Lion in Cranford, has received a prestigious accolade for its growing green credentials.
The team at The Red Lion, part of the Greedy Gordons culinary collection of pubs and venues, is celebrating success after being presented with a Sustainability Champion Award by the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII).
To achieve the celebrated Sustainability Champion status pubs must be actively involved in four key areas:
- Energy Reduction
- Waste Reduction
- Sustainable Procurement
- Customer and Team Engagement
Director of Greedy Gordons, Richard Gordon, revealed their popular pubs and venues, which include The Red Lion at Cranford, The Snooty Fox at Lowick, The Pig & Waffle in Grafton Underwood and the Buttery Café and Farm Shop in Woodford, are all actively boosting their businesses to be more eco-friendly.
Richard, who runs Greedy Gordons with business partner Sonya Harvey, raised a glass to toast The Red Lion’s latest award achievement.
He said: “We are thrilled to announce The Red Lion has received the BII Sustainability Champion Award, it is such an honour to achieve this status within the industry. It is testament to the hard work across our teams who tirelessly strive to ensure our business is as sustainable as possible. We have made significant investment within the business as well as within the wider communities where our popular pubs and venues are located.”
The pub is also creating a buzz by helping boost bee populations. In a bid to increase biodiversity in the pub garden The Red Lion announced it is involved in the Punch Pubs’ ‘Pollinator Pubs’ initiative.
Richard revealed: “As part of Punchs’ biodiversity partnership with the Eden Project, we have planted pollinator-friendly plants in the pub’s garden, grown and nurtured at Eden’s Growing Point nursery. We were thrilled to be one of only 100 Punch pubs across the UK to be specially selected for this incredible initiative!
“We have also sown National Wildflower Centre seeds and have a bee cup to support our bee community to stay hydrated. We’ve significantly invested in this initiative including bespoke signage for the garden, which is a haven for bees and wildlife.”
The Sustainability Champion Award has been created by the BII and is “awarded to those in the industry who have gone above and beyond to demonstrate their commitment to running a sustainable business… doing some incredible work to build an eco-friendly future that's better for pubs, people and the planet”.
Additional activities to help secure sustainability status focuses on the business’ customer and team engagement initiatives, which include promoting sustainable transportation by encouraging customers and staff to use public transport, bike or walk to the pub providing incentives including discounts.
Richard added: “We’ve launched a Greedy Gordons Walk Guide, to help support peoples’ mental health. It maps a route which links all our venues, and a discount is offered to those who complete the walk.”
The venue also donates used coffee grounds which are utilised by a local allotment, vegetable peelings are used to feed chickens and ducks which live opposite the pub, while waste beer is used in dishes, including pies, and cooking oil is recycled.
Richard said the pub had implemented numerous energy reduction measures leading to a significant reduction in usage which saw energy costs decrease by 20% in the past year. Its waste reduction measures included introducing recycling programs, composting food waste and eliminating single-use plastics.
The resourceful team often upcycle furniture at the pub repurposing pieces for other areas of the venue and repainting previous pub picnic benches, which the team donated to a local pocket park.
For more information visit https://greedygordons.co.uk/