Features / Food and drink
Nature-boosting booze brand launches in Bristol
Have you ever thought that giving all your money to millionaires is abit weird?
James Law thinks so: “Chasing personal wealth is for dinosaurs. It’s ridiculous,” he says, and so he’s launched a radical new business that intends to hack capitalism ”so it’s for us not against us”.
The traditional model that accumulates wealth to pay out to shareholders leaves a bad taste, he says, in light of the social and environmental problems the UK – and the world – is facing today.
is needed now More than ever
“Why give all your money to faceless capitalists, then sit back and watch them trash the planet?” asks Law. “We’re so deep into the problem, that businesses establishing themselves now need to do everything they can to solve the issue. No porsches on a dead planet and all that.
“We need to do things that are creative, fun, bold, tasty, to try to solve the problem.”
View this post on Instagram
Rather than buying fancy new cars, the profits from his booze company Evrythng are being ploughed into spades-in-the-ground eco-projects.
“500 years of capitalism, and all we’ve done is rip nature to shreds,” says Law of the motivations behind his new brand. “It’s got to stop. But people are so confused about the right thing to do, and behaviour change is hard. And often it’s asking them to stop driving or flying to Magaluf – so they feel like you’re taking away what they love.
“So let’s give them a product that looks and tastes great, is the right price, is available where they already shop, but we take the profit system and use it to fight the good fight.”
He’s calling it ‘the rise of the climate economy’ and his business model is, he says, “devastatingly simple”.
It starts with “cracking gin, vodka, rum” made in the Welsh hills. These bottles are sold to consumers at a fair price, and the business keeps its overheads radically low so they can give a more substantial profit – and 100 per cent of it at that – to environmental protection.
A background living in squats and attending Spiral Tribe parties, followed by a career working with alcohol producers large and small has given James Law the drive and skills to launch Evrythng – photo: James Law
Law sees a beautiful relationship between the problem and his solution – booze is “one of nature’s greatest inventions”, he says: “Nature has gifted us alcohol by its amazing ability to turn sugary water into wine. And all we’ve done is ravish nature to get rich! Instead, let’s use nature to try and help fix nature.”
He’s aware of the “absolutely natural cynicism” from consumers that has developed over so many years of companies using greenwashing tactics – “people don’t really trust brands because they lie – so much of it has been nonsense that it just gets boring”.
So he’s making Evrythng’s accounts publicly available: “I don’t take a traditional salary,” he says, explaining he instead receives a small commission for every bottle sold. “There are no for-profit investors in the business, it will never be for sale and anyone can login to our Xero account and track every penny as it moves through the business.
“We’re hoping that, if you can see that we actually are giving the money away, it will build trust. We are doing this for real, and if it resonates as a concept, maybe we can compete with the next bottle of gin that is supported by a celebrity, because we won’t need those promotional stunts – we have the purity of the idea and the transparency of the model.”
Small Bar on King Street is stocking Evrythng products, along with a handful of other pubs and bars in Bristol – photo: Martin Booth
It seems to be working so far – in Bristol at least. The Golden Crane cocktail bar and the Junction are on board, as well as the Arnolfini, the Green Man and Small Bar, and soon the Plough in Easton – so Bristol tipplers have plenty of opportunity to buy a drink and know a substantial chunk of the money they hand over is going directly to nature projects.
“So I go to the pub in Clifton, have a pint, and that bit of greenery over there is benefiting. There’s a very visceral connection between what we’re trying to do and where the money ends up,” explains Law.
Festival partnerships are also in the pipeline – “Ultimately we’d love to be Glastonbury spirits supplier! I’d say to Emily, you can buy from the big boys and make them richer, or you can buy from us and give money to the projects you deeply care about – it would be hard to say no!”
Law sees the creation of consumer demand a real part of his role – “so customers are saying to operators, why do you have Smirnoff on the bar when you could have Evrythng?!” This way, the brand can grow and create a positive ripple effect.
“I want the product to be in the weekly or monthly supermarket shopping basket, taking profit from those old-fashioned companies like Smirnoff that pretend they’re doing everything they can but are really just greenwashing their sins away,” Law says.
“That means our products aren’t at the cutting edge of sustainability yet, but we’re proud of what we do – lightweight bottle, paper label, natural cork stopper, all of that stuff is as good as other people that are claiming to be 100 per cent sustainable when they’re not.”
When Evrythng is selling enough bottles they can encourage their production partners to up their sustainability game, whether that be sourcing an organic regenerative gin base or using post-consumer recycled glass.
People find some tension, he says, in this approach, but Law is pragmatic about it, saying he wants to start making a difference now, and they will improve as they go: “Those that can afford a 100 per cent sustainable product absolutely should buy it – but for those that can’t, here’s a bridging alternative so we can beat up the faceless corporates and use the money to fix the problem,” he says plainly.
View this post on Instagram
It’s his entrepreneurial spirit – along with involvement, when younger, in squats and the south London Spiral Tribe parties that introduced him to alternative ideas – that has found Law embarking on this venture.
His background working in alcohol production both micro and macro – namely Diageo, the biggest producer globally – has given him a wealth of useful insight, while his graphic design and sales skills mean he can handle most aspects of the business himself, which serves the operation well.
“It means we don’t need big start up budgets. It allows us to be really scrappy and nimble,” he says, “and just go in and ‘blow some shit up’ as they say.”
As for whether it will work – Law essentially believes the proof will be in the pina colada. But he thinks it’s the right time, with an apparent growing contempt for the uber-wealthy and a rising awareness around the urgency of environmental action.
“Gen Z consumers are getting a double whammy from the climate emergency and from capitalism,” he says. “They inherit a dead planet, and they can’t afford to buy anywhere to live. Surely our wonderful youth are ready for this revolution – to stop doing it in the old way.
“It’s up to everyone else to define whether it works by getting on board with it. This is a call to arms really – hopefully it will be the beginning of a movement.
“And Bristol is the perfect city for Evrythng. It’s got a brilliant, progressive bar scene and the community have always been at the forefront of climate, nature and environmental causes.”
Evrythng is available in Bristol at Arnolfini, the Junction, the Golden Crane, the Green Man, the Plough and Small Bar with all profit currently going to the Wildlife Trusts. You can also buy Evrythng products from the Inn Express online here.
For more information visit evrythng.cc and read more in James Law’s White Paper here.
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
