Show corporate bookers and councils your venue takes this seriously

Who asks hospitality businesses about ESG?

Usually three groups. Corporate clients booking events, meetings or contract catering, whose procurement teams may send suppliers sustainability questions. Grant funders, especially councils offering money for energy efficiency, heat pumps or new kitchen equipment. And customers, who increasingly notice how a venue handles waste and sourcing.

Local decarbonisation grants can ask for your annual gas and electricity in kWh and your current emissions before you apply. Nottingham’s Bulwell Business Decarbonisation Grant, for example, asks for both. Our guide to energy figures for grant applications explains what funders look for.

What makes up a cafe or restaurant’s carbon footprint?

Energy is almost always the biggest part, because kitchens run hot equipment and refrigeration for long hours. The report measures:

• Gas for cooking and heating, from your bills, reported as Scope 1
• Electricity for fridges, freezers, ovens, dishwashers, lighting and extraction, reported as Scope 2
• Waste, from contractor tonnages or estimated from bin sizes and collection frequency
• Water, which matters more in a busy kitchen than in an office
• Company vehicles, if you run a van for deliveries or catering jobs
• Refrigerant (F-gas) leakage from fridges and cold rooms, from the refrigerant added during servicing

As a rough guide, a cafe using 40,000 kWh of electricity a year would produce around 5.2 tonnes of CO2e from electricity alone, using the 2026 UK grid factor of about 0.13 kg per kWh. The report shows the exact calculation with the right factor year.

Two honest limits. Food waste is not split out as its own line; it sits within your general waste or recycling figures. The food and drink you buy can be included only as part of the optional spend-based estimate of stock and materials, which is a rough figure rather than a supplier-specific footprint. The report covers the main sources a small business controls and lists its coverage in the methodology appendix.

Where hospitality businesses usually find savings

Because energy dominates, the quickest wins tend to be there. Switching equipment off between services, maintaining fridge seals, and moving to a renewable tariff backed by REGOs (which counts as zero in the market-based Scope 2 figure) all show up in the report. Separating food waste and cardboard from general waste often reduces both the footprint and collection costs.

Water is worth a look too. Busy kitchens and washrooms use a lot of it, and simple fixes such as aerated taps, efficient pre-rinse spray valves and fixing leaks reduce both the bill and the figure in your report.

Your private action plan lists these in priority order for your venue. If you are applying for funding for bigger changes like a heat pump, your baseline gives you the “before” figure assessors want. See our green business grants guide for current examples.

Fitting it around service

A cafe, restaurant or pub usually finishes in 30 to 45 minutes. Have your gas and electricity bills, your water bill if you have one, and your waste collection details (bin sizes and how often they are emptied) to hand. Answers save as you go, so you can split it across two quiet spells. Your first report is free. Start your report and have it ready before the next client asks.