Our Impact
We want to use our scale for good by growing and operating our business sustainably, reducing our energy and water consumption, evolving and minimizing the guest packaging we use, and actively reducing our operational waste.
GREEN DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION
With 1,200+ restaurants located from coast-to-coast, we have a responsibility to understand our environmental footprint and take meaningful action to reduce the impact of our operations.
ENERGY & WATER MANAGEMENT
We have continued working with our brands on corporate energy efficiency retrofites and implementing the core energy efficiency initiatives for our new builds and renovations.
Beginning in 2023, we started implementing new water savings technologies into locations (saving 15-20%) and expanding new innovations into testing such as high efficiency window coatings and building energy management systems.
We are on track to have completed over 350 energy efficiency retrofites by the end of 2023.
Technologies that are making our restaurants more energy and water efficient:
LEARNING THERMOSTATS
KITCHEN HOOD OPTIMIZATION
LED LIGHTING
WALK-IN FREEZER CONTROLS AND REFRIGERATION SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS
LOW-FLOW WATER FIXTURES
GREENHOUSE GAS (GHG) EMISSIONS
At Recipe, we acknowledge that climate change is a serious issue that requires concerted action.
In 2022, we kicked off the next phase of our sustainability journey to help complement and amplify the meaningful actions we are already taking to reduce our carbon footprint:
Recipe worked with a third party to help us measure our Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions for baseline year 2018. Our emissions were estimated to be 40,161 tC02e.
Recipe has begun the process of updating our GHG estimates in order to form the basis for establishing Recipe's GHG reduction targets. Natural gas & electricity are the largest components of our GHG emissions in corporate owned facilities so our GHG reduction strategy will be focused on those areas.
SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING
We are continuously looking for new and innovative packaging solutions that align with our guiding principles for sustainable packaging.
OUR EFFORTS
We’ve partnered with our brands to switch to sustainable packaging solutions, ensuring that collectively:
As of end 2022:
100%
of our packaging and single-use items (SUIs) are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) free
97%
of our guest packaging (excluding SUIs) is made from renewable, recyclable or recycled sources
83%
of our plastic-based guest packaging (excluding SUIs) is recyclable or made from recycled content
98%
of our paper-based packaging (excluding SUIs) is made of fiber from certified sources committed to the growth and conservation of forests
We are working towards achieving 100% on all of these metrics.
WE HAVE ELIMINATED...
8 million styrofoam cups and containers each year since 2019
23 million plastic bags each year since 2019
10 million non-recyclable containers and 1.5 million plastic lids each year since 2019
1.5 million PFAS packaging containers and single-use items each year since 2021
6 million non-recyclable black plastic clamshells each year since 2020
86 million plastic straws each year since 2018
WASTE MANAGEMENT
Estimated waste produced in 2022 across our restaurants in Canada: 21,632 metric tons.
Recipe is working on has a number of initiatives focused on waste measurement, reduction, and diversion. To increase the volume of organic waste diverted from landfill and reduce the cost of organic waste collection, organic waste collection pilots have been undertaken at restaurants in Guelph and Calgary and we have investigated opportunities to pilot different types of biodigesters. We have explored the use of AI tools to improve waste measurement at restaurant level, and investigated reusable packaging. A number of Recipe brands have partnered with Too Good to Go, a food waste recovery app enabling restaurants to sell surplus food as surprise bags to Canadian consumers at a nominal cost, with pilots underway.
In 2021, we worked with a third-party to conduct waste audits with six of our brands to estimate the waste produced in our restaurants in Canada. Audits were conducted with our larger brands and unique concepts, allowing us to gather the right breadth of representative data which we could apply to the rest of our portfolio.
ESTIMATED WASTE COMPOSITION
Estimated waste produced in 2022 across our restaurants in Canada: 21,632 metric tons
We are working with our brands to identify and prioritize opportunities for better managing our waste through reduction and/or diversion initiatives.
BRAND SPOTLIGHT
100%
Of The Keg locations in Canada have recycling services
76%
Of The Keg’s corporate locations in Canada have organics / compost services
71%
Estimated waste diversion rate in 2021
80%
Of restaurants participated in St-Hubert’s Green Zone program when it launched in 2010
110
St-Hubert restaurants achieved the ICI on recycle! certificate granted by RECYC-QUÉBEC
40 tons
Average amount of organic and putrescible waste diverted from landfill each year
For full details related to Recipe's CSR journey please refer to our previous CSR Reports.