For press queries, contact edwin [at] greendrinks.org or see the Stories or News pages.
In 1989, at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London, Edwin Datschefski was sitting with his green design colleagues Yorick Benjamin and Paul Scott when he noticed an enviro-minded acquaintance at a nearby table. As it turned out, the friend was sitting with a few of his own eco-conscious mates, so they pulled some tables together. And so a movement was born.
The concept evolved into Green Drinks and now it's global. In 2001, Datschefski created an official Web site, and it has since spread across the world. See www.greendrinks.org for the latest city count and a list of countries. Each city has an organiser who arranges meetings in bars and restaurants (often with organic or vegetarian food), relays information via email, and facilitates discussions.
The spirit of Green Drinks is that anyone can come, and this makes for interesting interactions.
There are lots of benefits to green drinks; they are hard to quantify, but when you have seen people come and make new links and learn and argue and set up new schemes and get new jobs etc, it is a good feeling.