Sustainability at Wells & Co.
Our family business is putting our planet and the people who inhabit it at the heart of everything we do. Read on to learn more.
Meet Ed
As a member of the Wells family, the idea of doing sustainable business holds extra weight for our Head of Sustainability, Ed Robinson. He explains:
“I’m passionate about ensuring that our family business is one we can be genuinely proud to pass down to future generations. That means brewing great beer and running great pubs in a manner that respects and supports the natural environment and the communities that we are lucky enough to operate in. As you’ll read below, we’ve been busy translating this way of thinking into genuine action that we’re excited to share with you.”
Sustainability Report
The Wells & Co. Sustainability Report offers more detail on all the stories on this page and many more. Download your copy now to learn more about our people and planet activity to date and our big ambitions for the future.
Don’t Lose the Ouse
The Mission to Save Our River
The increasingly polluted state of Britain’s rivers has become a topic of national concern in recent years and the River Great Ouse in Bedfordshire is sadly no exception. It’s tragic, it’s scandalous, and it’s something that we at Wells & Co. are passionate about changing.
That’s why we’re backing the team at the Bedfordshire Great Ouse Valley Environmental Trust and their ‘Don’t Lose The Ouse’ campaign. The BedsGOVET team are focused on identifying sources of pollution in the river and working alongside their passionate team of volunteer citizen scientists and sponsors such as ourselves to help manage the return of the river to a safe and healthy state.
Our Partnership with the Zero Carbon Forum
Our Journey to Zero
We at Wells & Co. are proud to partner with the Zero Carbon Forum, a non-profit organisation that’s empowering its members to achieve their sustainability objectives as a united effort.
With the support of the Forum, we’re committed to cutting emissions and futureproofing our business.
The Forum is helping us build a clear carbon footprint across our brewery and pub estate—UK and France alike—whilst offering expert guidance and peer collaboration to drive real, measurable change.
We’re proud to be part of a collective that’s pushing our industry to genuinely raise its game. There’s no time to waste.
Food Made Good
Our Partnership with the Sustainable Restaurant Association
The Sustainable Restaurant Association has proven to be an invaluable ally as we evolve our business.
Undertaking their Food Made Good Standard, a globally recognised framework assessing over 15,000 hospitality sites, has really helped to embed sustainability into every aspect of our pub operations.
The Food Made Good standard has already resulted in positive changes to the food and drink we serve. After two years of focused work, in early 2025 our UK managed pubs achieved the highest possible three-star rating on the Food Made Good
Standard.
Building the Future Together
Whilst we’re busy minimising the emissions created by our brewery and pubs, we at Wells & Co. recognise that we simply achieve a truly sustainable business on our own. Tackling the emissions that occur in our supply chain – for example transport, waste, and the ingredients we purchase for our brewery and pubs – require us to collaborate with our business partners and peers in the industry to collectively raise our game.
In June 2023 we hosted the first Independent Family Brewers of Britain Sustainability Forum at our Bedford HQ, Brewpoint, bringing together over a dozen regional family breweries to share challenges and solutions.
Forums have taken place every six months since, marking an important step in
uniting the industry around collective climate action. Crafting a sustainable business doesn’t happen in a vacuum; the real progress comes when we work together.
Our commitment to a better planet.
This year, we launched our Planet and People Strategy. We are focused and committed to delivering it to positively impact the communities we operate in.