Sustainability thought bigger: The Community Plan by "The Cambridge Public House"

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Plastic straws were abolished? Organic waste was reduced? All well and good but how big you can really think and design bar operations so they have a positive impact on the local and global community and turn the team into a ‘community for a purpose’? All this was demonstrated by The Cambridge Public House at Bar Convent Berlin 2023.

Every year there’s one talk at the show that gave him goose bumps, said Angus Winchester, Global Director of Education at BCB, concluding the talk on Wednesday at noon. In 2021, for him, it was the presentation by Louisa Dodd of the ‘Sustainable Restaurant Association’ (click here for the interview), last year that of Jean Trinh and team from ‘Alquímico’ in Colombia (click here for interview). And this time Hyacinthe Lescoët and Hugo Gallou from ‘The Cambridge Public House’ in Paris made sure of that, Winchester said. 

 
A concept going far beyond the bar

Why? Because underlying the down-to-earth bar-pub concept, which has fused cocktail bar and (British) pub culture in the Marais district since early 2019, is a truly unprecedented and exemplary approach to sustainability. No, The Cambridge Public House is not a zero-waste bar, not an outfit geared to getting the last thing out of each zest. The 7-head team supporting founder Hyacinthe Lescoët and Hugo Gallou has instead worked out a concept over the years that goes far beyond their own four walls.

For the talk they delivered at BCB, the duo had brought far too many slides – which they quickly realised themselves – to be able to show and explain everything they do. But no problem: The presentation documents can be found on the company’s own website, as can an ESG report (Environment, Social, Governance) and an evaluation of the company’s own CO2 emissions.

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Triad of ecological, economic and social sustainability

Let’s just stop and think for a minute: There is this little cocktail bar in Paris that both submits a report that is actually only mandatory for large, listed enterprises, and has had a detailed and correspondingly expensive analysis carried out of how much is emitted and where improvements can be made. It invests time and money because the owners have understood that economic activities also go hand in hand with social responsibility. Here, the three dimensions of sustainability – ecology, economy and society (read more here) produce a harmonious triad. What’s exciting and clever about this: At The Cambridge Public House people have realised that they can achieve so much more with an approach that places people and the community front and centre.  

A few examples:

Investment in the team: “Staff happiness tools” such as 100% health insurance coverage, a 4-day working week, bonus payments at the end of the year, and teambuilding exercises to boost the atmosphere and minimise staff turnaround.  

Fundraising and charity: An integral part of the concept is the Cambridge Charity Group: At regular intervals, events and activities are hosted to raise funds for charity. Drinks soon to “leave” the largely seasonal menu are sold as “last chance”, and part of the revenue is donated. The team also donates part of their salaries.   

Education and exchange: Under the heading Cambridge Global Series both local and global events are organised. Masterclasses and workshops are held to promote the use of seasonal-regional ingredients, cooperation with local producers and ethical responsibility, to name but a few.  

Transparency: Numbers are handled transparently – the technical term for this is “open book management”. In 2022 sales amounted to half a million Euros, 50,000 products (30,000 of these cocktails) were sold. EUR 7,000 went to social causes – this year this figure is forecast to already reach some EUR 13,000. This has also become possible because the bar has been in the black since last year.  

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Too much CO2

BUT: There also numbers that give The Cambridge Public House food for thought, as was underscored at the BCB Talk. The “Bilan Carbone” analysis, a method launched by the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME), resulted in the following insight: the carbon footprint of the bar is far too high. The lion’s share of the 85 tons of emissions in total, namely almost 44%, was caused by the numerous flights to international events and other occasions. The second biggest share, just under 28%, was caused in the supply chain by the merchandise produced by suppliers. This also needs to be honestly factored in.

Three central learnings resulted from this stock taking exercise, explained Lescoët and Gallou:
– Emissions must be reduced
– So far, we have primarily travelled to market ourselves & our bar
– With our activities we have provided too little support for both the local and global community

10.5% lower emissions as an instant remedial measure

Some quick wins from this analysis include:  
– replacing beef with chicken in the food area (and guests are not bothered, they say), three tons less CO2
–  travelling more by train (and this also abroad, by combining arrival and departure by plane with train journeys in between), four tons less
– sourcing craft beer from France now instead of bringing it from Great Britain by refrigerated transport. The French offer was good enough for this now, they added with a wink of the eye. Minus 1.1 tons of CO2.  

Result of these immediate measures: 10.5% lower emissions – and, of course, the intention is to reduce them even further.  

SDGs in concrete terms: Cambridge Community Plan

However, a longer-term project also resulted from the analysis – the so-called Cambridge Community Plan. What sounds like a development scheme for the university town north of London, in actual fact is an extremely ambitious project for transposing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), into concrete actions. The idea: when travelling and taking the message of The Cambridge Public House to the world, this should in future be combined with making a tangible positive contribution – progressing from marketing to a purpose.

Each team member has chosen one of the 17 UN SDGs and developed a 2-pronged measure on this basis – one acting on a local level, the other on an international/global one. In both cases, a positive effect is also to be produced for the bar, such as an improvement of working processes or the forging of long-term partnerships.  

Three examples:

Co-worker Léa has addressed the “Zero Hunger” goal and supports the “Organigamente Rango” organisation in Sao Paulo as well as a local network of food service establishments that donates food rather than disposing of it. To this end, a cooperation with Paris catering schools is also planned.  

Hyacinthe Lescoët takes concrete steps for the SDG “Quality Education”: A running club for Paris bartenders organised in cooperation with Pernod Ricard not only makes for improved staff fitness but also raises funds to bring the WWW to Mexican villages, provide pay for teachers and give refugees in France access to education and further training.  

Co-worker Nico works on the SDG “Consumption & Production”: In Bangkok she will hold workshops on waste avoidance, upcycling and the like with local bars allowing the operations to put these learnings into practice on a permanent basis. In Paris she is doing this already, collecting solid waste with colleagues and building a network to exchange waste-avoidance ideas.  

The team community is also to benefit

It is the many little details that add up to one large whole – and that make sure that the team feels even more connected with their bar. This, they explain to the BCB expert audience, saves plenty of money when seeking and recruiting new staff. Money that could be better spent on local and international community projects. For more information on the Cambridge Community Plan, the ESG Report and the CO2 analysis go to:

www.thecambridge.paris/en/o/esg-report