Robin Birley (businessman)

Robin Marcus Birley (born 19 February 1958) is an English businessman, entrepreneur and political donor. He is the son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith and the night club owner Mark Birley. He had a brother, Rupert, who disappeared and is presumed deceased, and has a sister, India Jane Birley. His half-brother is the former MP, now Lord, Zac Goldsmith.

Career

Private members' clubs

Birley owns and runs 5 Hertford Street (5HS), a private members' club in Mayfair and Oswald's at 25 Albemarle Street. Having found a dilapidated block of buildings in Shepherd Market, Mayfair, he raised £30 million to refurbish them; fashion designer Rifat Özbek was commissioned to design the interiors. 5 Hertford Street opened in June 2012 with a launch party attended by Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, and Daphne Guinness. The basement nightclub was named Loulou's after Birley’s late cousin, Loulou de la Falaise. Over the following five years, 5HS became a staple of London’s social scene, and is where Prince Harry and his wife, The Duchess of Sussex, had their first date. The success of 5HS emboldened Birley to launch new membership-based venues. In November 2017, ''Avenue'' reported that Birley was close to finalising a deal to start work on a new club, akin to 5HS but with bedrooms for members, near Union Square, Manhattan.

In May 2019 the club faced claims from backroom staff who had protested against “poverty pay" demanding the real living wage pay rate and an occupational sick pay.

Birley Sandwiches

Birley’s first entrepreneurial success came with the foundation of Birley Sandwiches in the early 1980s. Over the following 30 years, he has gradually expanded the concept – sandwiches made in front of the customer from fresh ingredients – into a successful chain which now comprises 15 outlets in the City of London and Canary Wharf.

Environmentalism

Heavily influenced by Edward Goldsmith, his step-father’s brother and the founder of ''The Ecologist'', Birley has always maintained a keen interest in environmental matters. In 2002, he set up Envirotrade, a project assisting small farmers in Mozambique through reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and agroforestry by generating carbon credits through which they could earn a better living wage. The Sofala Project, in Mozambique, remains the only carbon project to have been awarded gold in all three categories of the Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard. The Sofala Community Carbon Project earned $3,453,228 from carbon offset sales between 2004 and 2013, and the participating communities earned $2,136,744 from agroforestry and avoided deforestation activities directly from the project.

However, the crash in the international carbon trading market meant that Birley increasingly had to fund the projects out of his own pocket. Having spent several million, he handed the projects back to the community in 2012, but continued making donations until 2015.

In April 2010, the BBC
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