Reducing the carbon impact of large-scale, on location and live events catering through education and empowerment.
At The Occasional Kitchen, sustainability and a commitment to minimise the environmental impact of location catering sits at the heart of our business and informs everything we do. We are proud to announce the launch of our innovative study to illustrate exactly how the carbon impact of live events and HETV catering can be reduced via empowerment and educational strategies. The project is running on a variety of projects across various sectors and live events over the coming months with results to be published in 2025. .
This project aims to encourage diners on set to consider their personal carbon impact when making food choices. We believe a significant shift in human behaviour will be recorded by testing the innovative strategies. They include: including carbon values on menus; introducing pre-ordering functionalities to mitigate waste; and embedding educational components, like cumulative carbon calculators, all within a user-centric app.
Research conducted in 2022 in Norway and published by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, proved this exact behaviour shift in restaurant menus with a focus group (2) which is very encouraging.
At the heart of this initiative is the empowerment of the end user – their freedom of choice and education. Currently the events catering environment adopts initiatives like “Meat-Free Monday” to encourage sustainable practice. But in reality this imposed action leads to frustration, and an increase in wastage. By empowering decision-makers with carbon impact data, individuals can make informed choices. This data-driven approach aims to cultivate awareness and responsibility, fostering a conscious and longer-term shift in consumer behaviour towards more eco-friendly alternatives.
To combat the issue of food waste and contribute to carbon footprint reduction, the project will incorporate a pre-ordering system within the app. Users have the ability to assess their choices, against a traffic light system for carbon impact.
Beyond carbon values, the app will serve as an educational platform, providing users with engaging insights into the environmental impact of their food choices. This educational aspect aims to elevate awareness and understanding, motivating users to make sustainable decisions.
We recognise the significance of understanding user motivations and potential barriers to change. Therefore, the project integrates qualitative feedback loops so that end users can share their experiences and insights. This provides valuable qualitative data to refine strategies, address challenges, and enhance the overall user experience and deepen impact.
To validate the efficacy of the strategies used and findings, we will work in collaboration with live job partners. This partnership involves the integration of a verified carbon calculator platform (to give reliable carbon data of dishes) and pre-ordering software, with The Occasional Kitchen leading the study to ensure robust methodologies and meaningful insights.
We will be producing ongoing presentation decks to showcase our learnings, as well as white papers at the appropriate points in the study.
We look forward to sharing our findings with the wider community, collaborators and peers in 2025. It is our intention that any positive findings and recommendations can be used as a blueprint for application across the live events and HETV industries.
