Light the fire

How many pubs glow all night long with the lights of their AWP machines?

How many country roads are lit up at night not by the street lights, but by the lights left on outside pubs long after closing time?

And how many bars are heated to a higher temperature than they need to be?

In this challenging year for the trade, while many licensees are looking to make savings across their business, there is another source of saving and a PR opportunity right in front of them which is too often ignored - saving energy.

Let's be frank. When The Publican last launched a drive to switch on more readers to the green agenda a couple of years ago, it didn't exactly set the world on fire. After the transition to the new licensing laws, all the nonsense over '24-hour drinking', and the impending smoking ban, it was an issue too far for licensees.

Two years on the signs are a little more encouraging. A poll last week found three-quarters (75 per cent) of users of ThePublican.com claim to have put some form of energy-saving measures in place. The flip side, of course, is that a quarter have not, which seems remarkable considering the national profile of the issue.

Pub companies have been attempting to address the issue at a corporate level in a huge variety of ways - ranging from Marston's recently launched oil-recycling scheme to various local food initiatives aimed at cutting out food miles.

But there's no doubt individual licensees could do more. So why aren't they?

Green expert and Oxford Brookes University academic Dr Rebecca Hawkins, an adviser to the hospitality industry on energy saving, says pubs have been too slow to wake up to the green agenda - and have been missing out on cost savings as a result.

"Although there are good savings to be made I don't think they are seen as significant by the individual licensees. And unlike the bigger companies they don't have specialists at their beck and call who they can call in to advise them. There's an ongoing lack of awareness, not necessarily of environmental issues, but of the savings that can be made.

"It goes without saying that licensees are very busy people who don't have the time to spend hours surfing the internet researching the issue. But I'm sure pubs will take up more and more of this as energy prices continue to go up."

At the forefront​

Much of the innovation that is happening in pubs is coming from managed operators who aren't afraid to spend big on their own 'eco-pubs'. They are offering up lessons for the rest of the industry too.

Ever the company at the forefront of change in the sector - and always one with an eye for a great PR opportunity - JD Wetherspoon has spent more than £3m on developing the Kettleby Cross in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, with the aim of using 50 per cent less energy at the site than in similar-sized pubs. Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) has been similarly ambitious with a project at a new-build Toby Carvery in Banbury, Oxfordshire.

Wetherspoon chief executive John Hutson believes the industry has been slow to grasp the green agenda as the vast majority of publicans are sole traders, unwilling or unable to invest time and money in the issue.

The local press in Melton Mowbray recently criticised Wetherspoon for appearing to go back on some of its green commitments at the pub, but Hutson suggests the real fruits of the project will be seen in the years to come.

"We've got 600-odd pubs now - in the future we hope to have 1,500. A lot of what we've done at the Kettleby Cross will be rolled out at new pubs as they open," says Hutson.

"We'd like to take what we are learning on energy consumption into new pubs through design and build, and by developing a different way of thinking from day one."

While the ambitious wind turbine at the Kettleby Cross is not going to work everywhere, other techniques including rainwater harvesting, solar panels and evaporative coolers could be applied more universally.

Hutson says some of the most successful measures in place have been the simplest, such as sensor lighting in toilets which only come on when someone enters, and installing a cooking range without friers.

Meanwhile, M&B believes a growing number of licensees and pubcos are wising up to the green agenda.

"As increasing momentum gathers behind the public awareness of environmental issues, in turn, so does the industry's," says M&B corporate social responsibility manager Sally Ellsom.

"It's encouraging to see the industry taking environmental initiatives seriously and to see more and more operators becoming active in this area."Assessment of the Banbury project, which has seen the trial of a wireless-control system to manage the temperature and timings of energy circuits, a specialist glycol-cooling conversion system, a kitchen 'intelli-hood' to monitor cooking activity and a rainwater harvest system installed, is ongoing.

This is serious​

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) regularly discusses environmental issues on its property panel. Director of communications Mark Hastings says the issue has long been recognised as serious at senior levels of the industry.

"Awareness of the issue among individual licensees is strong too, but their motivation to do something is not always so great," he says. "The incentives are growing considerably and as utility costs continue to rise, more licensees will come on board.

"But this is the same as people sitting at home - they will talk about glass recycling, changing their lightbulbs and saving the planet, but when it comes to actually doing something how many actually have?"

Another recent poll on ThePublican.com found that only 15 per cent of licensees think pub customers actually care about the pub's carbon footprint. So much of modern retailing is about giving customers what they want - if licensees think their customers don't really care about the green agenda, could this be another reason for their apathy?

Putting energy-saving measures in place will not only save pubs money, it could offer a genuine PR opportunity, and a new way of connecting with customers.

It needn't cost the earth after all.