Going Green

With a venue at Angel and another at London Bridge, we at Escape Rooms enjoy all the conveniences and privileges of central London life. Our game masters need only to pop to the corner to get lunch; the nearest tube station is only 10 minutes’ walk, and everything – that means everything – is available 7 days a week at the shops within reach. I’d be lying if I said we never took these conveniences for granted. But, recently, it became very clear that the fruits of the 21st century come with a hefty price attached. The eye-openingly-named Extinction Rebellion protestors closed down some of the arterial streets and bridges of London to bring attention to the direct existential threat humankind is currently facing and call for urgent action. How do we -as a small company in the heart of London- fit in this picture at all? We’ve been trying to change our ways at Escape Rooms for a while now, becoming greener in our decisions. But I must admit it’s been baby steps. In the last year, we’ve stopped offering plastic cups to customers and moved onto paper cups. Whilst we know that this isn’t ideal, of course, we’re aware that paper is better than plastic. As for us? We have been using our own branded fancy ceramic mugs (want one? click here!). We’ve made steps to become greener through creating less waste as well. We reuse Blu Tack, for instance, when sticking customer ‘team cards’ onto the Wall of Fame at London Bridge. In fact, we’re a bit stir crazy with reusing Blu Tack. There’s an unspoken competition in play at our London Bridge venue, with game masters competing for who can make the best Blu Tack figures. They’re everywhere within our office space. We now use biodegradable sweet wrappers for our complimentary sweets – thanks to our supplier for offering this option! We replaced our wooden tea-stirrers with a permanent set of company cutlery because we believe that the future is reusable not recyclable. We stopped using long lasting milk sachets and, instead, we’re making regular trips to our local grocery shops to pick up some bottled fresh milk (sadly they still come in plastic) along with some basics rather than ordering them online. Furthermore, we don’t print tickets for our games and all our correspondence is via email, even our invoices come in an electronic form. Always. Our next steps will be to ensure a thorough recycling system is in play at both of our venues. This takes a little more preparation but we’re working on it. Additionally, we’re looking into ways that we can replace the paper that we give to customers to use within their games. We’re hoping to invest into smart boards or perhaps even white boards. Love escaping? How can you be Earth-friendly when you’re coming to play an escape game? First: don’t print your confirmation email. There’s no need! Just your name on arrival is enough for us to confirm your booking. Second: Walk to our venue or use public transport. Parking is difficult around our venue anyway and the city has just welcomed 24 hour ‘Ultra Low Emissions Zone’ areas which we fall into. Therefore, try not to use your car when coming to our venues. Find more environmentally friendly transport. Third: Bring your own reusable water bottle and you can fill it up at any of our venues with filtered tap water!  Don’t litter! Fourth: Please be gentle to our props and equipment. This means that things last for longer within both of our venues and we don’t need to replace props as often. This doesn’t mean we want you to stop having fun. It’s just us asking you to be more self-aware of the affect you’re having on our planet. We all could do a bit more, but slowly, we’re making changes to help. Is this enough? Probably not. But it’s a good start.