Restaurants Brighton opens the year with an exciting new partnership, a strong sense of our place in the local community and a willingness to play our part.
Towards the end of 2023, we were approached by academics Tim Laing and Adam Jones from The University of Brighton who were looking to conduct research on the factors that support restaurants in Brighton and Hove to become more environmentally sustainable. Their ultimate goal is to develop an environmentally responsible restaurant toolkit to be made available across the city.
We couldn’t possibly say no when they asked for our help to get the right restaurateurs in the room?!
Sustainability is hugely important to Restaurants Brighton and we know that many of the restaurants we work with are constantly innovating to become more sustainable. For them, despite the associated time and economic cost, the motivation is strong and enduring.
Last Monday, a chilly but thankfully blue-sky day, we gathered with a group of hospitality leaders at wonderful Nostos in Hove where we were treated to a warm welcome from Kyriakos and the team and a great breakfast from chef Alexandros Tzimos!
Taking part in the discussion – which was led by Tim Laing – were the owners of Moshimo, Oeuf, BAKED, CasaAzul, Dilsk and Nostos. The tone was lively and positive with participants willing to share both their successes and failures.
It was fascinating to hear the differing definitions of sustainability and motivations for engaging in a sustainability journey. These ranged from personal personal perspectives, overlaps with quality, cost and efficiency improvements and cultural perspectives. Sharing success stories came out as a powerful way of identifying focus areas and potential blocks.
The next step in our partnership is to workshop the tool kit with a new group of restaurateurs in a few weeks time. We can see collaboration, inspiration and action arising from this project. We’re so excited and we’ll let you know how it goes…