Fast-Casual Restaurants Add Carbon Labeling to Menus in an Effort to Be More Sustainable

Though many people associate greenhouse gas emissions with transportation, food production actually contributes more methane and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. "You can innovate with cars, but it's really hard to innovate around cows," said Annie Longsworth, founder of The Siren Agency, which specializes in sustainability messaging. According to a report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, about one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions globally are derived from agriculture and land. Transportation is fourth at 14%. “People conflate carbon footprint with their cars, but what we eat actually has a bigger impact,” said Sara Burnett, vp of food values and sustainability at Panera. According to a survey conducted by Morning Consult in partnership with Adweek, 51% of Americans indicated they wanted to know the impact the food they consume has on the environment. The same percentage also supported carbon labeling initiatives by fast-casual chains. In 2020, fast-casual restaurant chains such as Just Salad, Panera and Chipotle took notice of this issue by labeling each item on their menus with their respective carbon footprints, known as carbon labeling. Beyond local ingredients In June, Just Salad was the first to carbon label menu items in the U.S. Previously, promoting a climate-friendly diet meant locally sourcing ingredients, said Sandra Noonan, the chain's chief sustainability officer. “But when you look at transportation … [it] is only 10% of the food's carbon footprint, on average. So what's the other 90%? It's the growing of the food; it's the actual agriculture,” she said. By October, Just Salad was joined by Panera, the first national chain to do so, and Chipotle. Chris Brandt, Chipotle’s CMO, said Chipotle instinctually knew carbon labeling was something its customers desired. “[Consumers] want to know what a brand’s values are and what actions we are taking,” Brandt said. “So what we decided to do … is to be as transparent as possible." At this stage, the three chains are focused on educating consumers about the initiative, while studying the impact and collecting data. Just Salad declined to provide specific numbers, but noted that in the weeks following the introduction of carbon labels, absolute sales of the lowest emissions items increased by double-digit percentages versus pre-launch, Noonan said. And while Panera and Chipotle also declined to provide data, the Morning Consult poll revealed that some 26% of Americans have ordered a menu item that had a carbon label from a fast-casual restaurant in the past six months. Click to enlarge Educating consumers Only 36% of those polled said they would either be much more or somewhat more likely to order food from a chain offering carbon labeling. But even if consumers haven't yet fully embraced carbon labeling, there's evidence that the ramifications could be huge if a majority of diners embraced more climate-friendly choices. For Just Salad, the aim of carbon labeling is to have the same impact on the climate as nutrition labels did for educating consumers on what was in their food. As a result, it hopes to shift dietary habits toward lower-emission foods, Noonan said. “I think it's important to have an intuitive sense of what is lower impact on your menu of food choices,” she said. Given the last year of climate disasters, even older generations are more receptive to messaging tied to climate change, said Jim Paar, founder and president of Full Motion Marketing, an agency that specializes in sustainability. Brands that ignore what's happening to the environment do so at their own peril, he said. By carbon labeling their menu items, chains such as Just Salad and Chipotle are not merely asking consumers to buy a product but to also engage with it, Paar continued. Longsworth cautioned that the messaging can't come across as judgmental. Instead, sustainability has to be irresistible for consumers to adopt it. And carbon labeling has to be simple. Rather than attaching a numerical value to menu items, chains might consider color coding, such as green, yellow and red. Ultimately, having these chains embrace carbon labeling is just the beginning. "In a perfect world, this would become an industry initiative," Longsworth said.

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Fast-Casual Restaurants Add Carbon Labeling to Menus in an Effort to Be More Sustainable

Just Salad, Panera and Chipotle want to help diners make climate-friendly food choices

Richard Collings

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Richard Collings