Restaurants and food businesses need to adopt a number of changes that can be easily made to reduce your carbon footprint and lower your ecological impact. Businesses need to be greener as that’s what their customers are demanding. The Global Sustainability Study of 2021 conducted by Simon Kucher and Partners found that globally 85% of consumers have made changes to their purchasing behaviour to become more sustainable, ‘greener’, in the last five years. It was also found that one-third of consumers are willing to pay a premium for more sustainable products, with the highest willingness being 42% in the US. There is a significant number of consumers who want to become more eco-friendly and businesses need to evolve with this new mindset to avoid becoming outdated. Reducing the carbon footprint of your business doesn’t mean giving up on your dreams or providing your customers with poor food, poor decor or poor service. Instead, it means taking practical steps to reduce your ecological impact and lower your business’s carbon footprint. These actions won’t happen overnight, but it is entirely possible to reduce your business’s carbon footprint and lower your ecological impact.
Here are 8 ways SKOOT thinks you can reduce your restaurant’s carbon footprint.
1. Responsible Dining
In order to reduce your carbon footprint, you need to make sure that the food choices you offer are as carbon-friendly as possible. Reducing your ecological impact is crucial when lowering your carbon footprint, as food production is a significant source of greenhouse gases. The best way to do this is to provide more carbon-friendly dishes, vegetarian, and vegan, as well as looking to source your meat locally and ensuring that fish is responsibly sourced (the majority of plastic in the sea isn’t from straws or water bottles it’s from fishing nets). Offering a variety of plant-based dishes can cater to environmentally-conscious diners and significantly reduce your restaurant's carbon footprint. Carbon-friendly foods are those that have a low carbon footprint during production as well as low carbon emissions during consumption.
The chart below gives you an indication of the highest GHG foods with beef being a whopping 27kg of Co2 per KG of beef, no-ones loving that, especially when compared to lentils at 0.9kg of carbon per KG.
2. Reduce Food Waste
Waste is an inevitable by-product of any business, but managing restaurant waste effectively is key to reducing your carbon footprint. The key is to reduce the amount of waste that you generate.
Hiring a waste management company is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint and limit the amount of waste that you produce. Your waste management company will help you get the most out of your rubbish and ensure that it is properly handled and safely disposed of. Implementing strategies to reduce food waste, such as using every part of an ingredient and optimizing inventory, can significantly lower your environmental impact.
Reducing, reusing and recycling are all essential ways to lower your carbon footprint. There are a variety of different ways that you can recycle your waste and if you’ve got an outdoor space or garden, composting and growing your own vegetables is a great way to embrace the circular economy.
We’re also entering a new wave of upcycling, with customers no longer viewing refurbished goods, or furniture as a downmarket or poor option.
3. Embrace Solar Power and Renewable Energy Sources
Harnessing solar power is a powerful strategy to reduce your restaurant's carbon footprint. By installing solar panels, you can generate your own electricity, significantly cutting down on carbon emissions. This shift not only supports sustainability but also aligns with the growing demand for eco-friendly practices in the restaurant industry.
Take inspiration from Le Présage in Marseille, Europe's first solar-powered restaurant, which exemplifies how solar energy can transform dining experiences. While urban settings might pose challenges for solar installations, restaurants can still switch to renewable energy providers. Consider exploring options like Ecotricity, which offers renewable energy solutions tailored to reduce carbon footprints.
Switching to renewable energy not only decreases reliance on fossil fuels but also promotes a sustainable energy future, contributing to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Embracing renewable energy is a crucial step towards achieving a more sustainable and environmentally responsible restaurant operation.
4. Change Your Lighting System to Energy Efficient Appliances
Most of your restaurant's carbon footprint is caused by your lighting system. This means that by changing your lighting system, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint.
Switching to LED lighting has the potential to reduce your carbon footprint by 50-70%. LED lights can consume 90% less energy than regular lights, meaning that you are saving money and lowering your carbon footprint at the same time.
5. Share The Responsibility
It’s not only the responsibility of a restaurant to reduce the carbon footprint of the business. Encouraging customers to make more sustainable food choices can help them reduce their personal carbon footprint. It’s also that of the customers, the responsibility needs to be shared. Providing lower carbon options such as more vegetarian meals automatically lowers the carbon emissions.
Offsetting food miles and adding a green service charge, is a great way to ensure that you’re doing good. Whether that’s a tree for every cover, or 1 per table. Given that 1 tree in its 1st year will remove 5.9kg of carbon and the average 3 course meal is 8kg, it’s a great way to easily reduce.
And with SKOOT each restaurant gets its own virtual forest. You can see what the new restaurants in Mayfair are doing with SKOOT - SKOOT.eco/manomayfair.
6. Ditch The Styrofoam & Plastic
The majority of take-away restaurant's carbon footprint is likely caused by your packaging materials. Styrofoam and plastic are the two most common items used for packaging food, but they are both highly harmful to the environment.
Styrofoam is not biodegradable and when it is littered, it takes hundreds of years to break down. Plastic is biodegradable, but it takes many, many years to break down so is just as harmful to the environment.There are more options for cutlery and straws, other than these materials such as paper or plant based bioplastic. Styrofoam and plastics directly impact our environment and should be avoided at all costs.
7. Promote Sustainable Transport Solutions
Every person turning up at a restaurant had to choose a mode of transport to arrive. Every mile someone drives is 300g of carbon. Every 28 miles you need to plant a tree to offset the carbon. Providing carpool options such as SKOOT. Or encouraging people to walk, cycle or use sustainable public transport all makes a huge difference. 25% of all carbon emissions are from transport, so it's likely to be a ¼ of a restaurant's footprint.
8. Incentivise Staff
Rewards are a great way to encourage staff members to reduce your restaurant's carbon footprint and make changes in their daily lives that will benefit the environment as well. Whether that's offering say an Amazon Voucher for every suggestion that you implement that reduces your carbon footprint, or a tips bonus at the end of the night for the server who sells the most vegetarian specials. Promote SKOOT Ride carpool App to staff, so they can split the cost of getting home at night but also reduce their carbon footprint.
We all need to take responsibility and most staff actually want to help make a positive contribution to the restaurant.
Conclusion:
The problem of carbon footprints and carbon emissions can seem overwhelming and confusing but the reality is that there are simple small steps that can be taken that will make a huge difference.
At SKOOT we have solutions focussed solely on restaurants that are easy to implement.
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