A toolkit developed by the university in partnership with Restaurants Brighton enables restaurants to measure performance on range of sustainability measures.
The UK’s restaurant sector faces significant challenges around its use of resources and the waste it generates, with WRAP estimating that the UK hospitality and food sector throws away over one million tonnes of food alone each year, costing businesses around £3.2 billion.
But food waste is only part of the story. Reducing water consumption and energy use, along with promoting sustainable sourcing, recycling measures, supplier relations and employee engagement all play a part in positively impacting the environment, people and the bottom line.
The team from the University of Brighton and Restaurants Brighton found that while restaurant owners in the city understand how critical it is to improve the sustainability of their operations and supply chains, they found it difficult to assess their current performance and identify examples of best practice to emulate.
To help restaurant owners, staff and suppliers to tackle this issue, the team has created a sustainability toolkit to assess and enhance environmental and social sustainability practices.
With a focus, on planet, people and profit, the toolkit includes a checklist which encourages restaurant owners to consider their current practices around water consumption, energy use, food waste and sourcing, environmentally sustainable materials, and social sustainability in relation to employees, suppliers and their communities. The process enables businesses to evaluate where they are on their sustainability journey and to consider areas for potential improvement.
The toolkit also includes inspiring case studies of restaurants in Brighton & Hove already tackling some of these issues. For instance, the owners of local sushi restaurant, MOSHIMO, share how they have prevented 1,860,000 litres of water from being poured down the drain and saved £115,000 in the process.
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