London pub pop-up aims to be world’s most ethical
Melanie May | 25 June 2019 | News
An ethical pub has just launched in London’s Shoreditch that aims to ensure that everything you can buy and use there has a positive environmental and social impact.
Launched by The Better World Group, The Green Vic only uses ethical suppliers, mainly nonprofits and social enterprises, for everything from the beer it serves, to the cleaning materials used and the food on offer. It is starting as a three-month pop-up on Great Eastern Street with the goal of gaining investment to open a permanent site early next year.
The bar stocks drinks that support over 40 individual non-profit charities with the menus listing key information on each organisation and their work. Examples include Brewgooder, which donates its profits to clean water projects in Africa via The One Foundation, and Ginerosity, which supports disadvantaged young adults worldwide.
The Green Vic is open seven days a week from midday until midnight, and will also host charity events throughout the week. Every Tuesday, for example, a local charity will have the opportunity to hold free fundraising activities at the pub and to put a special cocktail on the menu for the week that will see a pound from each one sold donated back to it. Every Saturday the pub will also hold a ‘Better World Brunch’ where five pounds from every ticket sale will go to charity.
The Green Vic is also aiming to be an ethical employer with 1 in 4 staff from a vulnerable or disadvantaged background. It has partnered with Unity Kitchen, a social enterprise that trains people with disabilities to get a career in the food and beverage industry, and Change Please, a social enterprise that trains and supports homeless people to become competition level baristas. Once people have passed their training, The Green Vic will employ them to give them work experience to help with their future employment.
Founder Randy Rampersad (pictured) said:
“I wanted to create a business that made the world a better place, where people can contribute to charity without changing their normal daily routine, has the capability to expand across the UK and combined my passion for partying so a social enterprise pub was the natural fit. One of the drinks brands I work with, ‘Toast Ale’ has a famous quote that sums up my vision perfectly; ‘if you want to change the world, you have to throw a better party than the ones destroying it’, that’s exactly what I am trying to do – make a difference and have fun at the same time.”
Advertisement
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.