Corporate social responsiblity

Punch Taverns is committed to a progressive approach to corporate responsibility.  We have grouped our activities into four areas which we believe are core to our strategy - Commitment to the Community, Marketplace Leadership, Employer of Choice and Commitment to the Environment.

With 75% of our 8,400 plus leased, tenanted and managed estate being community pubs, they form an integral part of local life and we support this through the ‘Pub is the Hub’ scheme.  We also have a policy for fundraising and charitable donations and support active involvement with local groups, schools and charities.

Each Punch pub runs an average of 1.5 teams or clubs with eight people taking part, that’s circa 115,000 people getting together every week in Punch pubs to share in a communal activity.

Punch pubs strive to improve their local communities and on average raise £3,369 each; that’s £32 million across our estate annually.  And 52% are members of recognised community schemes such as Pubwatch.

Pubs also create jobs within their communities and in Punch’s case that’s 36,762 in our managed estate and an estimated 50,362 in our leased estate (based on an average of 6.5 per pub).
 
As market leaders, we provide industry leading training to develop our licensees and pub managers to their full potential.  We pride ourselves on giving the best support and aim to be the first choice for anyone interested in becoming a Pub Manager or entrepreneurs looking to run their own pub.  We also work closely with our Pub Managers, licensees, the industry and Government to address social issues.
 
We also wish to attract and retain the very best talent in the industry and are committed to practices which will help us to become an employer of choice.  We assess employee opinions through an annual survey and offer our employees a range of benefits and support to help improve performance and create a happy and healthy working environment.
 
We are active members of several industry trade bodies and work hard to ensure our company’s voice is heard on all key issues.

Finally, as a business we recognise our environmental responsibilities and continuously explore new ways to minimise any negative effect of our working practices on the environment, for example by encouraging car sharing and home working.
 
All this activity was officially recognised at the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars, when Punch was voted Pub Company of the Year 2006 at the annual Publican Awards.  And our managed house estate, The Spirit Group, were finalists in the Environment Agency Water Efficiency Awards 2007 in the leisure and tourism category.

We invested in water efficiency equipment, improving existing equipment and making staff and customers more aware of the need not to waste water.  As a result water consumption at our managed pubs has been reduced by an average 36.5 per cent.