Rethinking the Menu: Our event for London Climate Action Week

Rethinking the Menu: A Key Piece of the Emissions Puzzle

On 25 June, as part of London Climate Action Week, we invited food businesses to an event to talk all things Scope 3 emissions – carbon emissions that occur outside the business itself, throughout the supply chain.

Often 90% of food businesses' overall emissions, they are more difficult to track, measure and manage than Scope 1 and 2 emissions, making them the elephant in the room in discussions on progress towards Net Zero.

The breakfast event, which The Food Foundation hosted alongside the Sustainable Restaurant Association and World Resources Institute (WRI), explored how the hospitality industry can drive real reductions in scope 3 emissions through clever menu design and marketing, including fresh data and insights from the new edition of WRI's ‘Food Service Playbook for Promoting Sustainable Food Choices'.

Our 5 key takeaways for food service businesses:

• The time to act is now. The 2030 milestone isn't far away, and the food sector is lagging behind. 
• You can use the power you have. There is a real opportunity to deliver something you can be proud of and to have a real impact.
• Targets are key. They commit your business to action and the data you collect can be used to drive powerful change. 
• Use the Playbook. Start by adopting the 18 no-regret strategies in WRI’s Playbook.
• This is an opportunity for a win-win situation. We can align our efforts to address both health and climate issues, bringing broader benefits for everyone. 

You can read a more detailed account of the event by the Sustainable Restaurant Association here.

Key resources:

• View and download WRI's Playbook for Guiding Diners Toward Plant-Rich Dishes in Food Service
• Read the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s new resource: Understanding Scope 3 in Hospitality - designed to help restaurants and other F&B businesses navigate the challenge of tackling scope 3 emissions
• Find out more about The Food Foundation's Plating Up Progress work. This benchmarking dashboard assesses the progress being made by major UK-operating businesses within the food retail, foodservice and restaurant chain sectors. We look at key themes relating to the transition to a healthy and sustainable food system, including carbon emissions targets and data disclosure. The 2024 update will be published later this year, and the findings will be included in the 2024 edition of our State of the Nation's Food Industry report