Fuller’s sustainability programme, Life is too good to waste, comprises of three pillars – Our People, Our Planet and Our Communities. The programme provides a clear path, with strong goals, for our sustainability journey. We protect and respect the things that matter and, when we work together – the Fuller’s family, our customers, and our suppliers – there’s no limit to what we can achieve.
In 2021, Fuller’s joined 27 other hospitality businesses to create a Roadmap for Hospitality to Net Zero ahead of the UK Government’s commitment of 2050. As a collective, The Net Zero Carbon Forum committed to achieve Net Zero on or before 2040 – with a commitment to be Net Zero for operational emissions by 2030. As part of this announcement, Fuller’s agreed that we would align with this ambition.
With this in mind, we began to set a roadmap to achieve this ambitious goal. In our baseline year 2020, 26% of Fuller’s carbon footprint related to our operational emissions. It was therefore essential we begin to closely mange and reduce emissions from both our gas and electricity usage.
We committed to procuring 100% renewable electricity across our Managed estate and our support centre, Pier House – sourced from wind, solar and hydroelectricity. This change cut our carbon emissions in half overnight.
To help reduce energy usage in our pubs and hotels, we have launched a series of training and engagement guides for our teams to help save energy through behavioural change.
We invested in our estate to help our teams reduce their energy consumption – such as smart temperature controls in our cellars, LED lighting and the adding the organic additive, EndoTherm, to our heating systems to improve the efficiency. These initiatives have led to a 22% reduction in gas usage and 15% reduction in electricity usage.
To shift our sites to zero carbon energy sources, we have started to install electric equipment in our kitchens. We now have 22 kitchens where electric is the primary source of power in our managed estate. The changes have led to a significant reduction in gas usage on these sites, between 40 and 100%, with nominal increase in electricity consumption. We have plans to install electric kitchens in more of our sites – with the aim to have 33 kitchens where electricity is the primary power source. by the end of this financial year. Installing electric equipment in kitchens moves us away from using carbon intense gas to 100% renewable electricity. Also, the energy used overall has reduced in the sites where we have electric kitchens. The kitchens are much cooler and we have seen a knock-on effect where other equipment, such as fridges, don’t need to work so hard to cool down. Our chefs have been welcoming of the more comfortable work environment and we have ensured that they are trained on how to use the new equipment effectively.
The Admiralty on Trafalgar Square reopened in April 2023 as one of our first fully electric pubs. This not only eliminated the pub’s gas usage entirely – but we also saw a reduction of approximately 20% in its electricity usage. This year, The Head of the River in Oxford recently opened as our first fully electric hotel.
In March 2024, we introduced Grassroots beef to a number of our sites as part of a trial to introduce products that are less carbon intensive on our menus. Grassroots beef is farmed using methods that have less of an impact on the planet.
Grassroots beef is independently assessed using the Farm Carbon Toolkit – which measures carbon emissions. The toolkit found that beef from Grassroots farms produces half the amount of carbon of typical beef herds in the UK. Grassroots beef not only has less impact on the planet, it is also extremely high quality. Grassroots beef will help with our Scope 3 carbon emissions – and it is high quality beef. The Grassroots beef trial was successful and we have rolled it out further across the estate – further reducing our carbon emissions related to food.
We trialled a new premium tonic dispenser. The dispense unit supplies a number of styles of tonic from the London Essence range. Introducing this unit has helped to significantly reduce the number of glass tonic bottles used in these sites. During the four site trial, we were able to reduce the number of glass tonic bottles by 35,000 – avoiding 6.7 tonnes of glass waste and reducing delivery road miles by 27,000km. We are looking to implement this solution into more sites.
We are planning to roll out more EV charging points in our hotels plus a number of rapid charge points in a number of key sites – in partnership with Instavolt. This not only provides a useful service to our existing customers – but it may also attract new customers. We will work with our digital team to ensure that the EV charge points are listed on the relevant sites’ websites.
12 of our hotels were awarded Green Tourism Bronze Awards. This year, we are looking to move several of these sites to Silver – with an updated application process. In addition, we plan to achieve for Green Tourism awards for all of our hotels.
In 2023, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approved our near-term science-based emissions reduction target. We have set a 43% reduction in operational emissions and a 25% reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2030. Since setting these, we have made positive progress towards both targets. Having our near-term science-based emissions reduction target approved by the SBTi demonstrates that while our targets are ambitious, they are achievable and sustainable.
We also have a social responsibility to our communities. Fuller’s is committed to donating 1% of our annual profits – and we support a wide range of charities. Special Olympics GB has been our charity partner since 2018. Fundraising activity for Special Olympics GB takes place across the business – including central fundraising events and donations from sales of dishes from our kids’ menus. We also encourage our pubs to support causes that are local to them. Our pubs have close relationships with their communities and a number of our teams support local causes.
In 2024, Fuller’s launched a guide to recruiting team members who are neurodiverse or have intellectual disabilities (ID). The guide was produced with help and support from LVS Hassocks – a specialist school for children with autism owned by the Licensed Trade Charity – and Fuller’s corporate charity Special Olympics Great Britain.
