SUSTAINABILITY

We’ve recently installed flow regulator taps on 92 of the taps on-site, reducing the volume by 5ltr per minute (down from 12ltr to 7ltr). We’ve also reduced our toilet flushes, which with over 2.4 million guests per year, is a fair bit of flush water saved (we estimate around 3.5 million litres in total!)… far from bog standard.

We already print our Kid’s Menus on recycled paper. This month, we thought about getting rid of them entirely (save the trees), but instead decided to use them as a tool to teach little foodies about making sustainable food choices, and how to recycle and reduce their waste. We’re doing our bit on that part too – and have said goodbye to those cute but oh-so-wasteful little boxes of crayons! 

With a lot of light bulbs to power, ovens to fire up and tills to operate, we use a pretty large amount of energy. But you can tuck into your chicken wings safe in the knowledge that they were fried using power from renewable energy sources! And did you know, all our food waste goes into the Rothenburg, a giant anaerobic digester that turns food into biofuel, which in turn generates electricity. There are only five of these in the country, and we’re pretty chuffed to be home to one of them!

Chai Guys have done away with the disposable cups. We’ve introduced good old-fashioned china cups, so you can take a seat and sip on your chai in style. If you’re in a rush, no worries, their takeaway cups are recyclable. 

We’ve increased the number of drinking water stations around Seven Dials Market to quench your thirst after all those salty truffle fries. You won’t find a plastic bottle here! If you want to buy water from the bar, you’ll only find LIFE Water in cans – who donate all profits to drop4drop, and have provided clean drinking water to nearly 2 million people around the world. 

Whilst they might be better for the planet than plastic ones, glass bottles still have a pretty mega carbon footprint (500g of carbon per 500ml bottle) and we get through a lot on our bars. We’re trialling spirits being delivered in jerry cans (thanks East London Liquor Co. for helping us with this one!) saving approx 250 glass bottles every month.

We’ve worked hard since day one to minimise the take away and throw away packaging here at SDM. And that includes serving up your meals on shiny silver metal trays, complete with proper, metal cutlery. Why? Because we serve up more than 170,000 dishes per month. That’s over 200k pieces of cutlery that are going through the dishwasher instead of into landfill.