Greene King For Good
There’s nothing we love more at Greene King than ‘pouring happiness into lives’ – that’s our purpose, after all.
Social purpose has been at the heart of our business for generations – bringing communities together, welcoming to all and caring about our people and our customers.
Greene King for Good - our environment, social and governance programme - encompasses our ambition to care for our planet, our people, our communities and you, our customers.
We believe that by creating shared value and opportunities for all we can be part of building a happier world.
our impact
As Britain’s leading pub company and brewer, our goal is to be the Pride of British Hospitality. To us this doesn’t just mean delivering fantastic customer experiences and serving up award winning beers. It’s more than that. It’s about Greene King being a positive force for good and having a social purpose that threads through every part of our business.
We are committed to driving social and environmental change and promoting inclusion and diversity within our business, through our partnerships and in the communities we serve.
Under Greene King for Good’s core pillars of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) we have a series of ambitions.
Environment
We are committed to operating in a long term sustainable way, reducing our impact on the environment so that it is protected for generations to come. So, in 2022 we committed to setting near term greenhouse gas reduction targets and a carbon net zero target of 2040. Our near term target to halve our emissions across our own operations as well as those outside of our direct control – such as the goods we bring into the business – were validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative.
We’re now focussed on reaching those targets in lots of ways, including:
• Phasing out natural gas from our business and switching to air source heat pumps and all electric kitchens
• By looking to procure and generate renewable electricity in the next few years
• By reducing our energy usage through greater efficiency
• By working collaboratively with our suppliers and partners to reduce carbon emissions and create circular solutions, protect and enhance bio diversity and minimise our water usage
We are proud to have been Carbon Trust’s Zero Waste to Landfill standard across our managed pubs, breweries and depots as well as ISO14001 accredited breweries.
Our customers always come first and so we’re also busy making changes to our business to help our customers make more sustainable choices.
From the food and drinks we serve to our pub environments we putting environment and social considerations at the heart of every decision. We’re introducing electric vehicle charging stations in our pub car parks, adding greater bio diversity into our garden spaces, reducing our packaging and phasing out single use plastics.
As a signatory of the Courtauld Commitment to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030, we distribute good quality food to foodbanks and via Too Good to Go, recycling remaining food waste into energy back that feeds back into the national grid.
There’s much more to do to protect our planet for the future, but we can do this together with our people, customers, communities, partners and suppliers – because it matters to us all.
Social
The pub has been a quintessential part of British life for generations; the very centre piece of community life – a welcome retreat, a place to laugh, to celebrate and to just be. Where old friendships blossom and new ones are made; where ideas spring and camaraderie is fostered; where relationships bond and communities grow.
At Greene King we believe in supporting our people and our communities by giving millions of people better lives and by providing good work for everyone.
Our work with Macmillan
As part of our social commitments, we’ve been a partner of Macmillan Cancer Support since 2012. Our team members and customers are passionate about supporting people living with cancer and have raised over £18 million to date.
We are also proud to be working with Macmillan on our shared values to drive equity, diversity and inclusion into cancer services through a new initiative with the aim of reaching people across diverse communities with poorer cancer outcomes.
Our pubs are uniquely placed to bring communities together and especially those you may feel lonely.
Through our No One Alone initiative, our pubs host hundreds of events to bring people together in their communities over a love of a hobby or simply the pub!
From book clubs to running groups, board games nights to local charity groups there’s something for everyone.
Each year we offer free Christmas lunches to thousands of people on our Christmas Community tables. And through our Proud to Pitch In programme we’ve supported hundreds of local grassroots sports clubs with equipment too.
Untapping potential
Providing good work for everyone is long held ambition.
We believe everyone should have a chance (or even two) for a fair start in life whatever their circumstance.
So through our social mobility programmes, Releasing Potential and Supported Internships, hundreds of ex-prisoners and young people are getting that fresh start at Greene King. Providing good work for everyone is long held ambition.
EVERYDAY INCLUSION
We believe in everyday inclusion so that our people and customers feel their true authentic self.
MODERN SLAVERY
Providing good and safe work is a priority at Greene King, which is why we have a three-year action plan detailed in our our Modern Slavery Report.
Governance
Our third pillar, Governance, focuses in enhancing transparency in our reporting and responsibility into our business. In 2022 we established our ESG & Sustainability function, adding a ESG board and governance structure, which can be found in our Annual Review 2022.
RESPONSIBLE RETAILING
We encourage customers to visit our Enjoy Responsibly page for information and advice on responsible drinking and Greene King’s actions for responsible retailing. We follow the ‘Challenge 21’ scheme or ‘Challenge 25’ in our pubs and our tills remind our team members behind the bar to check. What’s more, all of our new bar team members have to complete our training before they can serve alcohol, so that they understand their legal responsibilities and obligations, as well as the impact of alcohol on children.
We operate the Ask Angela scheme across our managed pub estate supporting our teams with training to help customers if they find themselves in vulnerable situations.
Operating safe pubs is a priority so we are proud to share that in 2023 our managed pubs were accredited by Home office based Best Bar None scheme.
ALLERGENS AND GLUTEN
In September 2023, we strengthened our resolve in helping customers with food allergies and became the first UK pub company and brewer to form a strategic partnership with the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation (NARF).
NARF is focussed on medical research, law and policies, education and raising allergy awareness to bring about positive change for people with food allergies.
We want our guests with allergies and intolerances to feel comfortable in our pubs and restaurants and trust our food, and we have strong procedures and menu information about allergens in place across our pubs, restaurants and hotels to help protect those will allergies and help our customers to make informed meal choices.
We’re also proud of our expanding non-gluten range, which is bigger than ever before.
HEALTHY EATING
Our aim is to serve great-tasting, quality food and to give customers a choice of a wide range of menu options that support a healthy balanced diet. Many of our menus now offer at least 10 dishes that are under 500 calories.
We want to help parents feed their children healthy meals. Our kids’ menus offer fresh fruit, salad and fresh vegetables, in line with the five-a-day government strategy on dealing with obesity. We are also signed up to eight pledges in the Government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal.