Making up around 95% of a pint, water is a key component of beer and is the reason breweries develop products that are so famous to their locality. At St Austell Brewery, we source our water on site from the ‘brake’ – a natural water source brought into the town by Walter Hicks in the earliest days of the brewery. This source is continuously monitored to ensure that our usage remains sustainable and causes no harm to the surrounding landscape and communities. 

We are continuously working to improve water management and consumption at both of our production sites (See page 22 of our Impact Report). First we are working on measurement- after all, we cannot manage what we cannot measure.  

We have been a zero waste to landfill business since 2017. However, we are committed to minimising our waste created. Unfortunately, our waste has increased slightly over the last few years due to acquiring more pubs, however we are always innovating and trialling new ways to reduce waste across our value chain: 

Improving biodiversity across the South West is critical in alleviating the impacts of climate change. We work with farmers who engage in nature-friendly farming through positive land management practices, such as rewilding hedgerows and low-till ploughing. 

Our farmers are dedicated to regenerative agriculture techniques. As Matthew Dale, a Cornish farmer and one of our barley suppliers (for over 20 years), puts it “Our soil is the most valuable asset we’ve got. If you don’t look after it, you’re knackered.” 

We take pride in our provenance and celebrate the fantastic produce offered by the South West. All our pub menus detail the locality of items, from cold pressed Devon rapeseed oil to Cornwall-based Trewithen Dairy and its butter. Our chefs create menus based on seasonal produce, with most ingredients procured from six key food suppliers based in the South West. Our food buying team go above and beyond to ensure the best quality for ingredients that cannot be sourced locally, with a policy commitment to support farmers in developing countries through Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance certification schemes. 

As an independent business which has nurtured some of our supplier relationships for over 20 years, strong supplier relationships matter to us. For any new suppliers, rigorous screening tests are in place and our preference is always to work with local farmers, fishers, and producers. We ask that all suppliers align with our food sourcing policy, supporting the five freedoms for all animals. Moreover, as supporters of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, we require the use of certified sustainable palm oil. We are also a member of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex) and 100% of our food suppliers share their ethical trade information with us via the Sedex platform. However, only 15% of our total suppliers share this information; we will work on growing that number over the next year. 

Meet some of our suppliers by turning to page 40 of our Impact Report. 

Our Charitable Trust has been supporting local charities and worthy causes in the South West since 2003. More than a third of all money raised is donated to individuals and small local groups in the region – whether that is funding to run a health support group, or individuals seeking pieces of equipment like wheelchairs. Since establishing the Charitable Trust in 2003, we have raised over £1 million and we have raised over £230,000 since 2022. 

In 2023, we were the first pub company to partner with the Olio app. Olio connects communities with businesses in their local area who have surplus food. Our pubs redistribute a range of foods and meals that would otherwise go to waste. We are committed to limiting our waste to the bare minimum and have been zero waste to landfill across our managed pubs and head offices since 2017; relationships like the one we have with Olio make this possible. 

We are actively exploring how we can scale up our impact with Olio, expanding our reach to more of our pubs in 2025. We are working towards our goal of eliminating edible food waste by 2040 and are proud of our pub teams fighting food waste whilst supporting local communities. 

We actively support our people with their professional development, offering everyone access to a variety of different CPD accredited programmes and training courses. In 2024, we ran a Top Talent Programme for six individuals and welcomed 12 candidates onto our Established Leader Programme; our own internal bespoke training initiatives. We have also just started rolling out a Leadership Essentials Programme for all level 3 (and above) managers. 123 managers will complete this programme over the next few months. 

In 2024, we also introduced a new Train a Trainer programme in the managed estate where colleagues have the opportunity to become specialists and support the upskilling of their teams (e.g. Barista Specialist, Guest Specialist and, in 2025, Wine and Beer Specialists). This programme is designed to support our aim of empowering our teams cascade learning and promote a wider learning culture across the business. Moreover, and more broadly, we have invested in and introduced a new learning and communications platform, Thrive, which has connected all employees across the business for the first time in the company’s history, achieving a 94% adoption rate in past 12 months. 

Corporate social responsibility has always been an important part of our ethos. In 1939, Walter’s grandson, Egbert Barnes (Chairman, 1939-1979), introduced maximum working hours and a company pension to look after the workforce and their dependents, long before such benefits became widely available in the private sector. 

Today, we have several benefits in place for employees, depending on their tenure and contracts, which are continuously reviewed and improved upon. As an independent, family-run business, we go above what is industry standard to look after our employees, and wellbeing is an important measure of success. We also have enhanced policies related to adoption, fertility and menopause support. 

In 2022, we invested in a new platform called Culture Amp to measure company-wide, departmental and individual goals and help us to better understand employee engagement and satisfaction. We are using this data to drive continuous improvement in our core business strategy. We have just completed our third year of collecting this data and received our greatest engagement score yet; 67%, up from 66% in our 2023 survey. 

As a sixth-generation family business, we know that our success depends on how well we govern the things we do. Our plan to deliver on sustainability can only succeed if we are committed, diligent and aligned across the business. 

During 2024, one of our priorities has been to ensure that sustainability becomes an embedded part of our business DNA, considered in everything we do, from strategic planning, to our daily operations. The job to be done was to build a strategy that formalises our ambition and sets out objectives to steer action. We are currently finalising that strategy now, ready to launch in 2025, alongside an official governance structure. Consistent execution against our ambition across the entire business hinges on strong sustainability governance. 

Data is paramount in business decision-making, risk assessment and progress tracking. And, equally important, it keeps us accountable by providing clear visibility of our performance. Transparency and reporting, grounded in robust data, will be key to the success of our sustainability strategy. 

Sustainability is now baked into the substructure of every business committed to acting responsibly. Stakeholders at every level of the value chain rely on sustainability metrics to gauge how well businesses are managed and how prepared they are to manage inevitable future threats. 

At St Austell Brewery, we have seen an increasing number of requests from our value chain partners for data, as they seek to better understand their own impact and accelerate progress toward their strategies. We will not be alone there. We have also received increasing inquiries from potential partners on our sustainability efforts. 

Data is salient, not just for our internal understanding and decision-making but also for supporting our existing partnerships and developing new ones. However, sustainability data remains an industry-wide challenge, and improving it will be a shared journey for all businesses. We are no exception, data has been one of our greatest challenges. And that is why we have been working really hard over 2024 to review our data collection and reporting practices so that we can be a more transparent company in the future.  

We engage with our employees frequently to monitor and report on occupational health and safety issues and uphold high standards. Through our internal communications app, employees are incentivised to report on any potential hazards on-site, such as broken doors or missing parts. 

All pubs run daily audits, risks assessments, and food hygiene checks. Once a year, we carry out a company-wide ‘Stop Day’, which provides an opportunity to review all operational areas of the business, from driving depots to manufacturing sites, to review and improve where necessary. All pub managers have first aid training, and each pub has a dedicated fire marshal. Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) training is available for senior team members, and all new starters must complete relevant health and safety topics through our internal learning platform.