SUSTAINABILITY
less expected areas like community involvement and team engagement. The important thing to understand is that you can’t do it all at once so break it down into bite-size chunks of quick wins, medium and long term goals and start ticking off your achievements on a regular basis. For us, sustainability is a business goal but we also have increasing numbers of clients who want to see evidence of our sustainability work.”
QUICK WINS AND
LONGER-TERM GOALS Mark Linehan, Managing Director of the SRA, echoed Grimes‘ comments about the scale of the task. “The best route is to start with simple tasks/quick wins to achieve first before moving on to the more time-consuming or complex areas. For example, in a kitchen, it’s easy to separate waste streams to make it more visible and therefore manageable, but improving the energy efficiency of kitchen equipment may take longer to achieve because of capital budgets and the outstanding lifetime expectancy of equipment. In the meantime however, caterers can make changes to the way they use that equipment to maximise efficiency. Other easy steps could include switching from bottled to filtered water and using recyclable disposable packaging.”
According to Grimes, procurement can have one of the biggest impacts and again there can be quick wins. “We discovered that making procurement policies such as 80% of vegetables used being seasonal varieties from the UK, only using
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free-range eggs or MSC-certified seafood were relatively easy decisions to make. However, sourcing new suppliers of local produce that meet the necessary due diligence and quality standards took longer to achieve. From a procurement perspective, the SRA has also helped. They have an ever-expanding list of suppliers who are SRA- approved so by using them you are also helping your own sustainability credentials. We now specify that all new suppliers to Bartlett Mitchell must be SRA-approved.”
WORKING CLOSELY
WITH FM Not all decisions will be for the caterer to make, so input and commitment from the facilities team to the sustainability process is essential. Waste management is one such decision area.
Grimes explained: “Some of our sites are in city centre locations with very limited waste storage facilities so we have to work with building management to find the most effective way. Through the SRA’s connections, we work with WRAP and HaFsa to identify ways to reduce waste streams in the short, medium and long term. We have many options available ranging from waste food and oil collection to on-site composting and recycling; waste for incineration/ power stations to some sites where they even have wormeries.
“We also separate and measure our waste and it’s led to some big reductions. The SRA estimates that if the average restaurant reduces
waste by 20%, they would save £2,000-£4,000 per year. There are not many businesses that would want to turn down those sort of savings.”
Another important sustainability consideration is the health, wellbeing and attitude of staff - especially, according to Linehan, because employers play a big part in their employees lives. He explained, “Employers should remember that they have an influence on what their employees eat during as much as half their waking hours. With that influence comes responsibility to provide a well- planned menu offering healthy choices and providing quality information to employees to enable them to make the right dietary decisions. Bartlett Mitchell’s DARE (Delicious and Responsible Eating) menu philosophy does just that. Healthy staff will respond well if they feel that their catering at work reflects the value in which they are held.”
WHAT GETS MEASURED,
GETS MANAGED Utility bills are rarely paid directly by the caterer; in fact, many premises don’t even have sub-metering for catering service utilities. Therefore, perhaps the best way to reduce consumption in catering areas is to start measuring consumption of water, gas and electricity. Does your kitchen area have separate sub-metering for example? Is that an option? Is waste measured and monitored? Could targets be introduced and the team be incentivised for reducing consumption or waste?
www.bartlettmitchell.co.uk TOMORROW’S FM | 51
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