IHG, Côte and other hospitality majors join Zero Carbon Forum

Côte Restaurant Group is one of five new joiners

The initiative has today (17 December) announced IHG Hotels & Resorts, McMullen’s Brewery, Wadworth Brewery, Côte Restaurant Group and Honest Burgers as new members.

There are now 33 businesses participating in the scheme. Other member firms include Nando’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut Restaurants UK, Brewdog, Adnams and Fuller’s, as well as the UK’s largest pub company Stonegate Group.

The Zero Carbon Forum was launched late last year with the support of trade associations UK Hospitality and the British Beer and Pub Association. It promised to create a roadmap to net-zero for the sector by autumn 2021, with a deadline more ambitious than the UK’s legally binding 2050 ambition.

In October, the scheme published its roadmap developed in partnership with Carbon Intelligence, which is headlined by a commitment to help members deliver net-zero operations by 2030 and net-zero value chains by 2040.  The roadmap supports businesses to prioritise decarbonisation over offsetting. It states that, by 2040, participating businesses should reduce operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions by 90%. The reduction should be 57-78% for Scope 3 (indirect) emissions by this time.

Building on the overarching strategy, the Forum will assemble working groups to keep assessing and potentially accelerating the decarbonisation strategies of individual member businesses, and of key sources of emissions.

McMullen’s Brewery’s joint managing director, Heydon Mizon, said the business has joined the Forum, to ensure its decarbonisation journey is “as effective and efficient as possible by sharing best practice with our hospitality peers”.

Mizon added: “It is a complex challenge, but we have begun, and the path becomes clearer with each step we take towards our zero-carbon goal.”

The Zero Carbon Forum’s chief executive Mark Chapman said: “As the impacts of climate change unfold, the time for talk is over. We’re very pleased that these big names in the hospitality world, driven by highly inspiring and experienced leaders, have thrown their weight behind us on our united mission to reach net-zero.

“Rapid decarbonisation has to be a focal point for any business and should be the most important way to grow sales, attract new customers, retain staff and reduce costs.”

Deeper dive into decarbonisation

 IHG’s chief sustainability officer and vice president for global corporate responsibility Catherine Dolton recently appeared as a guest speaker on edie’s Net-Zero Business podcast. This episode, published in October and also featuring Inspired Energy, explores how the business is transitioning its 6,000 existing hotels to net-zero operational emissions. Click here to stream this episode.

The Zero Carbon Forum’s sustainability lead Kristen Filice, separately, featured as a guest speaker for edie’s Net-Zero Carbon Inspiration Sessions – an afternoon of online events hosted in November. You can watch her session, a debate-style panel discussion also featuring Pukka Herbs, by clicking here.

Sarah George