How the bar sector is working to be more sustainable

August 31, 2023

By Katherine Price

“Change is quite slow but it’s definitely going in the right direction,” says Anna Sebastian, former bar manager of the Langham London’s Artesian bar and now a consultant to the sector with clients including the Savoy and Raffles London at the OWO.

“I always start with what they have on their back bar – can we reduce it? [Or choose] different products that have travelled less time to get to us? Because that all adds up.”

Sebastian also tries to work with local brands as well as businesses that are reputably accredited, such as B Corps. Bradley Dorrington, owner of the 50-cover Wine Cellar in Bury St Edmunds, is similarly assessing his supply chain to identify where the business can do better. He points out that a lot of suppliers now have their ESG reports easily accessible on their websites for operators to review, while also having those conversations with your suppliers about what they’re doing.

“Who you choose to work with makes a big difference. All our wine suppliers are gunning towards net zero,” he says. “We choose our partners really carefully. We make sure our wine suppliers are doing everything they can on their level.”

He’s also looking at making more use of English wines, which he says have greatly improved in recent years despite their reputation.

“The price has been relatively high over the last eight years, whereas now the price is coming down a little bit, but the quality has gone up, therefore the value has increased massively,” he explains.

Palé Hall, a luxury hotel in Bala, Gwynedd, has also been promoting estates and wineries making “a sustained and concerted effort to be more environmentally conscious”, says sommelier Garry Clark, including to customers – these wines are highlighted on the menu with a bee symbol.

“We have also taken to highlighting those wines that are suitable for vegans and people choosing to live a plant-based lifestyle by marking the text in green,” says Clark.

“We have also been focussing on wine miles and have reduced the focus on new world wines and increased the uptake of domestic wines, especially those from Wales. Over the coming year, we expect to all but eliminate the new world from the wine list (possibly apart from a few token offerings) and focus entirely on domestic and European wines, with a particular emphasis on wine producers that farm sustainably and environmentally consciously.”

It’s all about reducing waste and consumption in all its forms, whether that’s emissions, ingredients, or even reducing the amount of paper you’re using by reprinting the wine list less often, which is what Palé Hall has started doing, while not putting off the customer at the same time.

“How do we make waste luxury? Generally, that’s quite hard to do. We look quite hard at giving things two or three different elements of life before throwing them away,” points out Sebastian.

This can mean using ‘waste’ from other elements of the business – for example if a bar is connected to a kitchen, is there a way to make use of surplus ingredients? Palé Hall has been reducing the amount of garnishes it adds to beverages, and although certain drinks still come with garnishes, peels and trims are then used to make syrups and cordials. Meanwhile, zero waste London restaurant Silo turns its wine bottles into crockery.

Glass is a huge talking point for the industry currently, with several studies claiming that the production of glass bottles is the main contributor to wine’s carbon emissions by a significant margin.

“The wine industry needs to consider alternatives to bottles. Yes, they have been a staple of wine for centuries, however the sheer weight, cost, and energy use in producing bottles is astronomical,” says Dorrington, who feels the industry is falling short when it comes to addressing its glass consumption.

“Yes, glass is recyclable, however the emissions created in creating the bottles, filling the bottles, then shipping the full bottles to various countries, is off the charts.”

Some bars are already working with refill programmes to reduce the amount of glass spirits bottles being used, with the spirits sent to bars in reusable containers to fill their front-of-house-facing bottles. Once empty, they are sent back, sanitised, refilled and redistributed.

“We may end up only buy one case of spirits for the whole year and we only use six bottles. Every time we run out; we then just refill it… that saves such a huge amount of waste,” says Sebastian.

Similarly, at Palé Hall, its locally produced gin is now supplied in five-litre refillable jerry cans, which reducing the amount of glass waste “considerably”, agrees Clark.

“As well as this, we have slowly moved four of our key sellers over to this method of supply, taking an estimated ton of glass out of the system over the last 16 months. We have just taken on another Welsh gin who is supplying their product in aluminium bottles with refillable pouches to top off the bottles and are looking at three other suppliers who will operate in a similar manner,” he adds.

The hotel has also started sourcing its mixers in cans, which are believed to be more energy-efficient to recycle as well as lighter. This has enabled Palé Hall to reduce its glass waste by nearly 20% over the last year, and the team hopes to reduce it further this year.

The Wine Cellar is also avoiding single-use plastic or glass water bottles after having installed a water filtration system so that it can continually refill its own bottles. However, Dorrington believes that wine may prove a trickier one to tackle.

“A lot of people when they go into a bar, they like having the bottle brought over to the table, the cork popping out, a nice bottle sitting in the middle of the table. How that translates into the future of wine packaging, I’m not sure, but there’s got to be a way somehow,” he says.

“It is going to upset a few people… it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It will also be a generational thing. However, if we want to become a sustainable, environmentally friendly sector, something has to change.”

There are options out there – flat bottles, PET, boxes with plastic pouches, refill programmes, as well as kegs and cans, which all come with their own challenges, and none are perfect. Dorrington has begun testing several options in a personal capacity and his experience with canned wine was positive.

“For younger wines it doesn’t really affect it at all, which is good,” he says, while the only negative he offers to keg wine is the cost of equipment required. “But once you’ve got the equipment, it works out to be pretty cost-effective,” he adds. “Keg wine’s probably one of the most appealing at the moment.”

He stresses that he’s not advocating for the eradication of glass wine bottles altogether – just where he feels it’s unnecessary.

“Wine you’re going to age for 15 years, those wines should stay in bottles,” he admits. “But wines that are produced now that are made to be consumed within 12-18 months, I don’t think there’s a need to have them in these big, clunky glass bottles anymore,” he says.

“There’s got to be a solution out there somewhere to make our industry greener that’s more than just planting a load of trees to offset our emissions.”