30 Euston Square and its caterer Searcys hosted the Planet Peach Sustainability Summit on 5th March and brought together hospitality leaders to look at best practices, future-thinking, and the sustainable impacts of the sector.
The award-winning venue was selected to host the event due to its shared outlooks and policies with the event organiser around the environmental, economic, and social impacts of in-person events. Close to the capital’s major public transport hubs, the venue is known for both its connectedness and convenience, as well as its digital connectivity.
During the Planet Peach Sustainability Summit, 30 Euston Square showcased its ESG actions, outcomes and impacts to some of the foremost voices in the UK hospitality sector.
The event also enabled practical experience for a team from the company’s nominated hospitality charity, London’s Hotel School. It was set up to teach hospitality skills to homeless and vulnerable people and to empower them to find sustainable employment. 30 Euston Square and Searcys partnership with Hotel School has already created one full time role at the venue and four at a wider venue portfolio.
Lunch and canapes during networking were 100% plant-based and balanced low impact ingredients with delegate wellbeing with recipes that major on grains, fruit and vegetables and proteins. A sandwich lunch included Smoked hummus, grilled aubergine, beetroot, sour cherry harissa mini Losange diamond (ve) and egg-less truffle mayonnaise, mustard cress, small pave Levain (ve). Canapes headlined more plant-based food such as Risotto cracker, miso roasted butternut squash, chives (ve), Sushi rice cake, broad beans hummus, apple, and celery tartare (ve) and Chocolate cream, passion fruit gel, mango, and pineapple confit (ve).
All dishes served at the event scored ‘A’ or ‘B’ using Nutritics Foodprint. Of the 12 dishes served, the carbon scores ranged between 0.02g and 0.32g CO2e per serving with more information here.
As part of its chefs’ training programme, Hotel School, also prepared vegan cookies at breaktimes. All food and beverage was served using non-disposable tableware and menu items, along with their allergens, were labelled using reusable slate.
Hot beverages throughout the day included NEMI Teas and Extract Coffee, while plant-based milk was served as a default with cow’s milk available. Both companies have strong social enterprise roots with NEMI Teas providing employment to refugees and preparing them for the workplace, while Extract Coffee is sustainably sourced directly from farmers and champions local communities and LGBTQ allyship and gender equity.
Naturally sourced water was served in glass bottles with excess and wonky fruits from the kitchens adding zest and flavour.
At the networking drinks, Searcys own signature English Sparkling wine from Surrey was served along with alcohol free English sparkling wine, Wild Idol. Beers included local small batch brewers Camden Brewery and B Corp Small Beer, which feature half the alcohol of traditional brews.
The Planet Peach Sustainability Summit covered the challenges of the supply chain, investment, politics, technological advances, and communication, as well as examining how individual businesses and the sector collectively can build on the progress and commitment already made.
Noted speakers including Kate Nicholls from UKHospitality, Thomas Heier from Wagamama, Assad Malic from Greene King and Katya Simmons from Nestle Professional UK&I considered the impacts, challenges and opportunities around ESG.
The Summit was a co-production between Peach 20/20 and communications agency Fleet Street and attracted c-suite executives, founders, entrepreneurs, and investors from across the food and drink industry.
Luiz Mazzari, 30 Euston Square’s General Manager, comments: “This inaugural summit was an important event for the entire hospitality industry and for us as a venue as it gave us a chance to highlight impact we are making to our people and the planet. ESG has been high on our agenda for some time, from minimising the impact with plant-based alternatives to stimulating our local area by recruiting, upskilling, and championing diversity in the venue. We encourage tomorrow’s talent and support them thorough their careers. We have a strong retention of the team and more than 51% of our colleagues have been with us for more than 2 years. We were delighted to host the summit and we took on new ideas, as well as sharing some of our own from our Sustainability Policy.”
“This is a vital issue. Make no mistake, sustainability is rising up board agendas and directors and investors all need to be engaged,” said Peter Martin, Executive Director, Peach 20/20.
“This is not another talking shop. The summit sessions interrogated the data, explored practical solutions, and invited debate and discussion from executive level operators, major suppliers, and independent subject matter specialists,” adds Fleet Street CEO Mark Stretton.
