Article

What is your restaurant's carbon footprint?

Countries and companies across the globe are making climate change high on their agenda.

February 4, 2016

By Baljit Singh, Deal Highway

Countries and companies across the globe are making climate change a high priority. In one Italian city, officials are cracking down on these emission enemies. The mayor of San Vitaliano — a town with a population of 5,000 people, located near Naples, the so-called birthplace of pizza — has issued an ordinance on banning the usage of wood-fired ovens in restaurants and bakeries until March 31. They can't use wood-fired ovens unless they're equipped with specially fitted pollution-reducing filters. So, let us take a look at the elements of the carbon footprint for a restaurant business.  

British Columbia is quite progressive when it comes to climate change. The Canadian province has done a lot of work on the Climate Change initiatives. Let us look at British Columbia as an example of reducing restaurants' carbon footprint. British Columbia's food sector includes producers, processors and distributors of food as well as food services and food retail sectors. There are more than 30,000 food sector businesses alone in British Columbia, employing approximately 300,000 people and contributing over $10.1 billion to the province's GDP, according to 2013 British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture statistics.

Source: Agriculture, Seafood, Agrifood 2013, B.C. Ministry

The food service facilities are highly energy intensive, using approximately three times more energy than other types of commercial buildings. Up to 80 percent of that energy is not utilized for any kind of useful work and is wasted through excess heat and noise from inefficient equipment, heating ventilators, air conditioning systems, lights and refrigerators.

The PG&E team has done a detailed study to understand the major electricity and gas usage in the restaurants. Some of the information is illustrated below:

Source: P&G Marketing Material

Now let us look at the Cheeseburger Footprint.

Cheeseburgers are a common food item for most people in the U.S. Estimates for the average American diet range from an average of about one cheeseburger per week, or about 50 per year (Source: Fast Food Nation) to as many as three cheeseburgers per week, or roughly 150 per year (the Economist).

Now, let us take a deeper look at the carbon footprint for a restaurant. Illustrated below are the components for a Chinese food restaurant's 600 metric-ton carbon footprint, according to a study conducted by Origin Climate:

Source: Origin Climate

For restaurants, the top-10 largest greenhouse gas contributors are illustrated below:

The table below shows the 10 most carbon-intensive ingredients for restaurants.

*By approximate serving size. 

So, the annual carbon foodprint for the Chinese restaurant outlined by Origin Climate in their study is illustrated in the following table:

By focusing on the Climate Change initiatives, the restaurant owners are considering to save carbon. The city of Seattle, Washington, published a report with the actions taken by the restaurants and their carbon savings.

Source: City of Seattle, Office of Sustainability and Environment

Suggestions for restaurant owners:

• Along with nutrition value, the carbon footprint of each meal should be considered as an important factor for consumers.
• Future menus will have color labeling like to denote the carbon footprint level of each meal.