Making sustainability measurable in workplace dining
GEC’s Carbon Labelling journey
At The Good Eating Company, great food at work is about goodness in every sense. From the people enjoying it to the planet we all share.
Sustainability is at the heart of our operations and shapes how we design menus, choose ingredients and work with our partners. And over the past few years, we’ve taken important steps to make that impact measurable and transparent.
Where It Started: Carbon Labelling
In 2022, we introduced carbon labelling across our menus, powered by our integration with Kafoodle.
For the first time, our teams and clients could clearly see the environmental impact of individual dishes. It sparked conversations and encouraged informed choices. It also helped us understand where we could reduce wastage without compromising on flavour or menu creativity.
But we knew that labelling dishes was just the beginning.
Looking at the Bigger Picture
To truly understand our environmental impact, we needed to look beyond the kitchen and examine the footprint of our entire operation. That’s why we’ve now adopted company-wide carbon reporting across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 using the My Emissions platform.
You might be wondering — what do those “Scopes” actually mean?
Here’s a simple way to think about it:
- Scope 1: Emissions we create directly — for example, fuel used in our own operations.
- Scope 2: Emissions linked to the energy we purchase, such as electricity powering our kitchens.
- Scope 3: Everything else in our value chain — including the ingredients we buy, how they’re produced, and how they reach us.
Scope 3 is by far the most complex. With thousands of specialist ingredients across our sites, it represents the biggest portion of our footprint and it is also the hardest to measure accurately.
Turning Complexity into Clarity
By bringing our data into one platform, we can now process procurement information far more efficiently and apply robust emissions factors to understand its impact. What once would have taken months of manual work can now be completed in hours.
For us, this isn’t about ticking a reporting box. It’s about gaining clarity to make better decisions, set more meaningful targets and support our clients with the transparency they increasingly expect.
As part of the global Sodexo Group, we recognise the responsibility we carry to lead with integrity and innovation and this next phase of our carbon journey has enabled us to strengthen that commitment.
Why It Matters
Carbon labelling was an important first step for us at GEC and it made environmental impact more tangible for our team and guests. Being able to embed these learnings into our business processes, we are helping redefine what responsible catering looks like for our clients, our people and the industry as a whole.
Sustainability isn’t a box to tick, it’s about how we create lasting value, together for everyone.