Green Tourism at Langham Brewery.
What is Green Tourism? And what has it got to do with our brewery?

Langhams is a small brewery in an old, converted granary barn surrounded by the beauty of
the South Downs National Park. Since day one we have had a strong environmental and social conscience and we have used our platform to support our community and sustainable initiatives.

And, we wanted to be able to back our claims, not just make them. So, when the South Downs National Park invited us to be one of the first 19 businesses to trial a new independent Green Tourism sustainability accreditation “Green South Downs”, we jumped at the chance.

Green Tourism is an eco-conscious movement promoting a greener and cleaner environment and supporting local communities. It encourages businesses to behave more sustainably; reduce their carbon footprint and engage with nature more responsibly.

The Green South Downs programme is designed to assist businesses in the South Downs with
marketing their Green Tourism efforts to other local businesses, residents and visitors by independently scrutinising and validating their efforts to become more sustainable.
Every aspect of our operations and proceedures were placed under a fine ‘microscope’ by the auditors to help them understand how and why we do everything. After several months of preparation and audit, we were awarded a silver certificate and have been proudly shouting about it ever since. 

We are now about to complete our second assessment to maintain and hopefully improve our accreditation. Green tourism awareness now permeates our processes and informs every aspect of brewery operation and decision making.

When we launched our Brewery Tap, our focus was to turn it into an inclusive local community hub and destination experience for all visitors, offering a friendly welcome, access, and facilities for everyone – in addition to great tasting beer! 

Also, in the brewhouse we have always done our best to reduce waste. You may see our local friendly farmer up and down the lane with a trailer of our spent malt to feed his cows, or you may have seen our spent hops on the compost heap at your local the allotment.

Where possible we do our best to be sustainable. We have always recirculated steam during the brew day, to ensure no heat energy is wasted, and we are now actively adapting our processes to further reduce and reuse water without impacting the quality and safety of our beer. We are also working with The University of Surrey on a pioneering project. This project aims to provide improvement to the brewing process (which we can share with other breweries) for years to come, and with the help of Chicheste District Council we have obtained a grant to help us retain heated waste water, and also to insulate and future proof our process pipework.

Green tourism is also about supporting local… and promoting awareness of behaving sustainably. Initiatives include: being part of The Chichester District Council Sussex Six B2B register; selling local products in the taproom and actively promoting local businesses with flyers and posters and on our website; regularly hosting and attending Green Forum talks to help spread the word and hosting our Keep Britain Tidy litter picking campaign. In addition to this plus we have created a new role for the business, ‘Retail and Green Tourism Manager‘.

To encourage visitors to not only visit the brewery but also enjoy the beauty of the surrounding landscape we are hosting a Music and Beer festival supporting the Friends of the South Downs and South Downs National Park on August 17th ; and a series of guided walks from the brewery in collaboration with Rural Strides, to name a few.

So, if you would like to get involved, and be a Green Tourist, please keep an eye out for our latest news, drop by our friendly taproom or try our beer at your local, join our Gulp Club, and get in touch with the team if you would like to join our community and help make positive steps to a greener future.

Your dedication and support is valued and we thank you all!