Web-based tool helps redesign sustainability within foodservice operations

FirstCarbon Solutions, a pioneer in environmental sustainability business solutions, and Compass Group, a food and support services company, have announced the launch of the software tool being used to support Compass Group’s Carbon Foodprint toolkit. The web-based tool is designed to help Compass Group’s food operations staff lower their environmental impact and their operational costs. Early Carbon Foodprint adapters include companies such as SAP and universities including Auburn University and Green Mountain College.

An easy-to-use toolkit, Carbon Foodprint allows chefs and managers to create customised strategies to reduce their operations’ carbon footprints by decreasing waste disposal, energy and water use. Foodservice managers can make up to 185 strategic choices across five key areas, including menu engineering, kitchen operations, kitchen services, site equipment and facilities.

Developed by FirstCarbon Solutions and hosted as part of its Sustainability Workbench platform, the web-based software application is an integral part of the Carbon Foodprint toolkit. The online technology allows cafes to benchmark and measure the improvements made throughout the cafe, which can be shared with clients for annual reports, sustainability indexes and disclosure to public programs such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

To develop the strategic planning portion of the Carbon Foodprint toolkit, Compass Group partnered with key players who could provide specific contributions in their area of expertise, such as the Green Restaurant Association, the Food Service Technology Center (supported by Pacific Gas & Electric), Energy Management and Energy Star Commercial Food Service. In phase 2 of this project, Compass Group teamed with FirstCarbon Solutions to enhance the toolkit with sustainability metrics in a robust and user-friendly software platform, with cutting-edge dashboard applications for food service industry clients.

Marc Zammit, vice president of corporate sustainability initiatives at Compass Group, said the web-based tool was created in response to his clients’ growing interest in having a strategic planning tool to measure, manage and lower their operation costs and foodservice carbon footprint.

“With Carbon Foodprint, we now have an opportunity to provide our clients with cost-effective solutions to lower the environmental impact of their food services,” Zammit said. “Commercial food service is a resource-intense operation and our on-site teams will now be able to use this scalable toolkit to make their operation more sustainable by minimising carbon impact, while at the same time implementing best practices that lower operational costs in the areas of menuing, energy, water and waste. Supported by FirstCarbon Solutions software, managers will now have the information they need to make the best choices for their business, their clients and the environment.”

As part of the design and collaboration, FirstCarbon Solutions collected thousands of pieces of data on the production, packaging and transport of individually purchased food items, serving materials and cleaning chemicals required to manage a foodservice operation ‘from cradle to customer’. FirstCarbon couples this information with site-specific operational data from individual cafes to provide up-to-date dashboards on the carbon, energy, water and wastes associated with all aspects of a foodservice operation.

“Compass Group’s Carbon Foodprint proves the point that sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive,” said Robert Francisco, president, FirstCarbon Solutions. “With this innovative technology developed by FirstCarbon Solutions, Compass Group will help redefine sustainability within foodservice operations by providing cafes unprecedented visibility into the impact their operations have on the environment and helping teams create behavioural changes that will have long-term impacts and improvements.”

Chet Chaffee, FirstCarbon Solutions Director of Supply Chain and Life Cycle Assessment, added, “The software platform that FirstCarbon Solutions Group developed in support of the Carbon Foodprint toolkit benchmarks the carbon, energy, water and waste footprints of each participating unit and provides insights on where to make changes to maximise sustainable efficiencies across the operation. To my knowledge, such a comprehensive, systematic and technically sound program, that considers all these aspects of food operations, has never been tackled before.”