Investors are increasingly looking to see that hospitality operators are actively engaged with carbon reduction and other sustainability initiatives, delegates at MCA’s Restaurant Conference heard this week.
Speaking on a panel about sustainability, Mark Chapman, founder and CEO of not-for-proft organisation Zero Carbon Forum, said the CFO of one of its member businesses recently told him that he’d been asked more about its work on sustainability in the past five months than the past five years.
“We are seeing that as the sector looks to refinance, they (investors) want to know what you are doing on ESG,” said Chapman. “With some of the PE-backed firms as well, CFOs are under increasing pressure to say, what their carbon footprint is and what are they doing to reduce that year on year.”
While Steven Packer, head of supply chain and IT at Pizza Hut Restaurants half-jokingly remarked that “banks and PE firms are going to save the planet”. “They are all asking questions about this now, and we are going to having to accelerate our growth journey because we’ll run out of capital at some stage, so if nothing else, that will get us there,” he said of operators in the space more generally.
Adopting sustainable business practices can also help operators save thousands of pounds per site, as well as stay ahead of consumer trends. Chapman said there was a huge cost benefit to businesses reducing their operational carbon, such as using less energy or water. “The P&L benefits are massive. Operators can save thousands of pounds per outlet.”
“It is genuinely more commercially viable to operate in a sustainable way,” added Mel Marriott, founder and MD at Darwin & Wallace. “It also helps you make informed choices about your menus and your drinks.”
