UK-based pub and brewing company Greene King has unveiled its plan to invest millions of pounds in improving energy efficiency across its pubs by the end of this year.

The company intends to invest in energy-saving technology across the 600 pubs it manages, with plans to extend the initiative to other pubs in 2024.

Greene King’s chief communications and sustainability officer Assad Malic stated: “To reduce our impact on the environment, it’s crucial that we look at ways of reducing the energy we are using and be vigilant for ways where we can cut wastage at scale. This multi-million-pound investment will benefit hundreds of our pubs and follows successful trials earlier this year.

“Pubs face challenges when it comes to reducing energy wastage, in particular, in historic and listed buildings, which are often poorly insulated. So, while we are looking at ways to reduce the energy we are using, we also need to ensure we are looking to minimise the energy that is going to waste.”

Greene King noted that the installation of voltage optimisation technology across its pubs will help to regulate the incoming power supply by reducing the voltage provided to the optimum level.

In addition to reducing the pub’s energy usage, the technology will also help the company to cut the associated costs and carbon.

The company, which trialled the technology earlier this year, registered a significant decline in electricity usage at each pub.

The technology will initially be deployed across its higher-energy-using sites, which include Greene King’s entire Farmhouse Inns estate of 70 pubs.

The technology will be installed near each building’s electric distribution board, reducing the voltage supply to the amount each pub requires.

Greene King’s latest move supports its strategic roadmap, which aligns with the company’s science-based target of halving greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the 2020s.

Malic added: “At the moment, historic buildings are constrained by planning laws that restrict the work that can be done to decarbonise them.

“We will continue to play our part to work collaboratively across the industry so we all become more sustainable, but we also need the government to recognise the unique challenges historic pubs face and help us create a decarbonisation plan in line with planning laws.”