8 Forward thinking London pubs make the Green Pub Guide

Twickenham’s The Cabbage Patch and The Turk’s Head feature in the guide, as do The Audley Public House in Mayfair and The Pig’s Head in Clapham Old Town.

Michelin Guide recommended pub The Holland in Kensington is also included, along with The Three Compasses in Hornsey, The Exmouth Arms in Kings Cross and The Queen’s Head in Pinner.

Green initiatives include partnering up with sustainability-focused businesses and local businesses, implementing tree planting schemes and having solid amount of plant-based options on the menu like The Exmouth Arms does, or using 100 per cent renewables for power, like The Cabbage Patch, which also has smart timers to switch off appliances at night and sends zero waste to landfill.

The Turk’s Head also uses renewables for power and smart timers, and has an efficient cellar cooling process as well.

The Holland sources food from regenerative farms and uses waste beer and wine in its dishes. It also has a ban on single-use plastic in the kitchen

The Queen’s Head has EV-charging pints and plenty of cycle parking,and has plans to install solar panels.

The Pig’s Head is certified carbon neutral and sources its meat from small regenerative farms, has in-house composting and sustainably sourced wines and spirts.

The guide is by Heineken SmartDispense, which is a water saving, carbon dioxide reducing “cellar innovator” and so clearly one of the initiatives cropping up is the use of this.

Hold your cynicism though. Yes, this guide is probably part Heineken greenwashing marketing tool, however many British pubs are centuries-old and their cellars existed before anthropogenic climate change did and so any “innovation” that reduces water wastage and carbon footprints of medieval technology is probably not wholly bad.

We’re not saying these places are perfect, nor carbon neutral, apart from The Pig’s Head that is. But they are trying. 

To see which other pubs are included in the guide go to greenpubguide.co.uk