Celebrate far from the madding crowds. Driftwoods is a glass pavilion on the River Thames, designed by Tom Dixon, where cinematic London vistas and considered interiors create a backdrop like no other.

A venue on open water has a short journey between what it does and where that ends up. Fuel, food, waste: every choice is made a few feet above a working river running through the middle of a city.

Revive. Repurpose. Replenish. What follows is what those three words mean in practice, named supplier by named supplier, because a claim you cannot attribute to anything is not much use to anyone.

Sustainability aboard Driftwoods is set out in named detail. Our fleet runs on Shell GTL, an alternative diesel derived from natural gas, classified as non-toxic, odourless and readily biodegradable. Our electricity is 100% green Octopus Energy, drawn entirely from sun, wind and water. We have voluntarily signed up to the ISM Code covering pollution prevention and waste management. Our galley works with Lake District Farms, Soil Association organic chicken and Marine Stewardship Council accredited fish, and our planners can design an ultra-low carbon event around plant-based menus and cruising routes that use tidal flow.

Power and Propulsion

The single biggest environmental decision a vessel makes is its fuel.

Our fleet is powered by Shell GTL, an alternative diesel derived from natural gas rather than crude oil. It burns more cleanly than conventional diesel, which reduces the emissions we release into central London air. As a paraffinic fuel it carries a low hazard rating and is classified non-toxic, odourless and readily biodegradable.

That last property matters more on water than it would on land. The Port of London Authority manages the tidal Thames as a working, living waterway, and the difference between a fuel that persists and one that breaks down is the difference between an incident and something far worse.

Our electricity is 100% green Octopus Energy, generated entirely from sun, wind and water.

We have also signed up voluntarily to the ISM Code, the international standard for the safe management and operation of ships. Nobody required us to. It covers pollution prevention and waste management, and adopting it means those things are run against an external standard rather than our own good intentions.

An Event Designed to Emit Less

Most of a venue’s footprint is decided long before anyone arrives, in the choices made while the event is still on paper. This is the part our planners can actually change with you.

Our events team offer sustainability advice as part of planning a private charter, with the aim of making it as energy efficient as it can be. Low-emission event design can include plant-based menus, biodegradable interior styling, and cruising routes planned around tidal flow energy.

That last one is worth pausing on. The Thames rises and falls twice a day, and a route timed to work with the tide rather than against it needs less power to cover the same water. It is the sort of thing only an operator who has spent generations reading this river would think to offer, and your guests will never notice it, which is rather the point.

In the Galley

Our Head Chef can build an ultra-low carbon menu around plant-based cooking, with a focus on vegetarian and vegan dishes. Our full menus change through the year, but the sourcing behind them holds whatever the season.

We select growers who use an integrated management process built on resistant and tolerant varieties, which removes the need for nematicides altogether. Those suppliers encourage cover crops to improve soil structure and nitrogen levels, which is unglamorous, long-term farming of the kind that does not photograph well and matters enormously.

Our principal butchery supplier is Lake District Farms, who work with more than 50 Cumbrian farms to reduce the impact of intensive farming and deliver the highest level of animal welfare. Carbon output from those farms sits far below the UK average.

Wherever possible our chicken is Soil Association certified organic, reared with access to space and natural daylight and living outside for most of their lives. We use the breast for seated menus and the remainder in canapés and sauces, so nothing is thrown away.

With fish, we exclude the species identified as most at risk by the Marine Conservation Society, and select only from sustainable sources such as those accredited by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Behind the Bar

A drinks list is usually where sustainability quietly stops. Ours is where a good deal of it lives.

Our vodka and gin come from Sapling Spirits, regenerative farmers producing B Corp certified, climate-positive spirits. The vodka is blended with charcoal filtered deionised water and the London Dry gin distilled using organic wild farmed grain. It arrives in eco boxes, in recycled glass bottles with natural cork that can be reused, cutting the carbon footprint by at least 37%. Sapling are working towards planting 1,000,000 trees by 2027.

Our beer is Toast, brewed using surplus loaves from bakeries and the heel ends from sandwich makers. Replacing barley with leftover bread uses less land, water and energy, and has saved over three million slices from waste. Spent grain is fed to animals and spent hops composted back into the soil. Toast were the first UK brewery to become a certified B Corp, holding the highest score of 111.8 points, and have donated over £20,000 to Rainforest Trust UK.

Our wine list focuses on sustainable, biodynamic and organic wines from English suppliers. Sea Change Wine use lighter-weight glass, plant-based closures and labels made partly from grape waste, with no unnecessary plastic packaging. Every purchase supports global marine charities, raising over €465,000 since 2018. The wines are suitable for vegetarians and mostly vegan.

Even the water is considered. Marlish draw from a borehole at Marlish Farm tapping a historic underground aquifer, naturally filtered through the Northumbrian hills. Their onsite bottling factory runs on solar panels, and they have planted over 5,000 trees in ten years.

Nothing Thrown Away

Waste is the least visible part of an event and usually the most telling.

All our cooking oils are recycled extended-life oils to begin with. After use they are recycled again and repurposed by Ohara Waste Oils, a family-run business that converts the majority of what it collects into bio-diesel.

Our coffee grounds are collected weekly and converted by bio-bean into compacted fire logs for domestic wood burners and multi-fuel stoves. Those logs burn 20% hotter than kiln-dried wood, and recycling the grounds this way produces 130% less greenhouse gas than sending them for anaerobic digestion, which is what normally happens to them.

The Suppliers We Keep

Almost everything above comes back to the same thing: who we buy from, and for how long.

We hold long-term relationships with our suppliers rather than moving between them on price, which supports their small businesses and gives us the standing to ask hard questions about how they work. We source luxury products as locally as possible, and we look for producers whose principles align with our own, which is why the names on this list keep turning out to be family firms, B Corps and regenerative farmers.

Putting It in a Report

If you are choosing a venue for a company with published environmental commitments, you will be asked to justify it, and vague assurances are not much help in that conversation.

Ours are specific enough to put straight into a report: the fuel by name, the electricity supplier, the ISM Code, the accreditation bodies, and the individual producers behind the food and the bar. Our team will go through any of it in as much detail as your procurement process requires, and we would rather answer a hard question early than a complaint later. There is more on our sustainability page.

It also does something for the evening itself. Guests notice food that was cooked rather than assembled, and a gin that came in a reusable bottle. Doing this properly is not a compromise on the event. It is most of what makes the event good.

For how this works across a full programme of client and company events, see our guide to a corporate event venue on the Thames, or our corporate events page for packages.

The Practical Side

We take 60 to 265 guests: up to 180 seated in The Long Room, 228 combined with The Music Room, and 265 standing across all three spaces and the outside decks. We are fully accessible, with step-free movement throughout. Our venue spaces page shows how the three flow together.

We board at London Eye Pier and Tower Bridge Quay, both central and well served by Underground, rail and bus, which takes a good many car journeys out of an event before anyone has thought about it. Because the whole evening happens aboard one vessel, there are no coach transfers between a reception, a dining room and a late bar across town.

Routes and boarding are set out on our explore page, and our event guides cover the other formats we host.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Driftwoods a sustainable event venue?

Shell GTL fuel derived from natural gas, classified non-toxic, odourless and readily biodegradable. 100% green Octopus Energy electricity from sun, wind and water. Voluntary signup to the ISM Code covering pollution prevention and waste management. And a galley working with named suppliers we can account for.

What fuel do you use?

Shell GTL, an alternative diesel derived from natural gas. It burns more cleanly than conventional crude oil-based diesel, reducing our central London emissions, and as a paraffinic fuel it carries a low hazard rating.

Can you design a low-carbon event?

Yes. Our planners offer sustainability advice as part of a private charter, and low-emission event design can include plant-based menus, biodegradable interior styling and cruising routes planned around tidal flow energy. Our Head Chef can build an ultra-low carbon plant-based menu. See our menus.

Where does the food come from?

Lake District Farms for butchery, working with over 50 Cumbrian farms with carbon output far below the UK average. Wherever possible our chicken is Soil Association certified organic, used breast to remainder for zero waste. We exclude fish most at risk per the Marine Conservation Society and select MSC accredited sources.

What happens to your waste?

Cooking oils are recycled extended-life oils, then recycled again by Ohara Waste Oils into bio-diesel. Coffee grounds go to bio-bean and become compacted fire logs that burn 20% hotter than kiln-dried wood, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 130% against standard disposal.

Can you support our sustainability reporting?

Yes. The credentials are named rather than general, which makes them straightforward to put into a supplier questionnaire: the fuel, the electricity supplier, the ISM Code, the accreditation bodies and the producers behind the food and bar. Our team will go through any of it in the detail you need.

A venue that takes this seriously should be able to answer for it in detail, and we are glad to. If you are planning an event and need to know exactly what you are signing off on, we would be happy to talk it through. Reach us through our contact page, and we will take it from there.