At the HAC we pride ourselves on being a sustainable London venue and are always taking steps to reduce our impact on the environment, actively seeking out new ways to improve our processes and offerings.
It’s important to us that we maintain high levels of quality in everything that we provide to guests at the HAC whilst ensuring that we are aware of our environmental footprint as a business, and we work closely with our catering partners at Searcys to ensure that we’re doing everything that we can to operate as sustainably as we can.
Sustainable Event Catering
In order to maintain our practices as a sustainable venue, it has been vital that we source a catering partner that shares these values. In 2019, we appointed Searcys as our official and exclusive caterers based on not only their reputation for top quality, but their many approaches to providing sustainable catering.
In addition to locally sourced meat, fish and dairy, our house beer is recommended by the Sustainable Restaurant Association, coffee sourced from family-run single estates in Guatemala and Colombia and champagne from Drappier, which is the first ever carbon-neutral Champagne house. We provide free tap water to guests at the HAC and, if you do prefer it bottled, you can enjoy carbon-neutral and ethically-sourced drinking water from Belu, where every penny of profit goes to WaterAid.
Zero Waste Policies at the HAC
It’s not just our catering that makes us a sustainable London venue. We are working towards reducing food waste alongside our partners, which is why you’ll find different catering options for your event depending on the season, reduced use of meat and more and more plant-based options creeping into our event and conference menus.
We also request that all of our suppliers use recyclable packaging and reusable containers to support our waste reduction practices at the HAC.
Why Choose a Sustainable Venue for your London Event?
London is full to the brim with unique and beautiful venues for all kinds of events, so it can be difficult to choose the one that is right for what you’re looking for. But when it comes to your criteria, you’re likely to consider travel links, capacity, theming and décor, audio-visual capabilities and maybe even parking – but are you choosing a venue that is aware of its environmental impact and adopting processes or practices to ensure that they are sustainable venues?
In late 2019, National Geographic released information on the documented impacts of climate change to date from scientists around the world. Collectively they had discovered that rising temperatures and the melting ice and increasing sea-levels as a result are endangering animals and destroying their habitats, and warned that severe weather conditions are likely to increase with more hurricanes and strong storms, floods and droughts, and there will even be less fresh water available. Whilst some species are more adaptable than others and are encouraged to move north for survival, some won’t adapt and are likely to become extinct.
In addition to rising temperatures, plastic pollution has become one of the most dangerous predators to inhabitants of the world’s oceans with an estimated eight million tonnes of plastic making its way into the sea – and this is expected to double in the next thirty years. As a result, animals are consuming plastic waste and producing fewer eggs or are simply unable to digest it causing blocked organs and starvation, or are finding themselves tangled or trapped in floating plastics.
Reducing emissions with locally sourced produce, eating less meat, being conscious around waste and reducing use of single-use plastics and packaging can all help to slow down climate change and help the survival of species across the globe.
Choosing a sustainable venue for your next event helps to make a difference – and you don’t have to do anything but select a venue that supports your views and takes steps to decrease its own environmental impact.
We still have a way to go to becoming entirely sustainable and carbon neutral, but we’re committed to making those changes. To find out more about booking an event with the HAC as a sustainable London venue, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.
