Climate Meal campaign challenges restaurants and their customers to join fight against climate change

In the autumn, restaurants in the Helsinki metropolitan area will be piloting the new Climate Meal label. The Climate Meal label helps customers to identify meals from the menu that have a smaller-than-average carbon footprint. Restaurants are invited to join the campaign by providing them with the Climate Meal label and tools for calculating the carbon footprint of their dishes.

The Climate Meal campaign is part of the Mission Zero Foodprint project, which aims to help restaurants and other food service businesses to become carbon-neutral in the future. The project is being funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council.

Making the carbon footprint of restaurant meals visible

The Climate Meal campaign invites restaurants to provide climate-friendly meal options. Several restaurants have already signed up for the campaign, and the aim is to have more restaurants join in. The Dylan restaurants, Sofia Helsinki, Palmia restaurants and Löyly are among operators that have already embraced the Climate Meal campaign with enthusiasm.

“Löyly is honoured to take part in the Climate Meal campaign, as we are aware of our environmental and climate effects and aim to actively decrease them. Responsibility has been an important value to us ever since Löyly was established, and it continues to strongly steer our operations,” says Restaurant Group Director Jessina Koski from Löyly.

Climate Meals will be served at restaurants in the Helsinki metropolitan area from 25 October to 28 November 2021. The recognisable Climate Meal label provides customers with information about climate-friendly choices and an easy way to affect their own carbon footprint.

Towards carbon-neutral restaurant operations

The Climate Meal label can be given to a meal made from ingredients that have a combined carbon footprint of no more than 1.0 kg CO2e, which is roughly 30% less than the Finnish average. Going forward, the plan is to update the criteria for the Climate Meal label to correspond with the national climate objectives. The goal is for the label to be used by restaurants more extensively after the campaign to support carbon neutrality objectives.

“As a subsidiary of the City of Helsinki, we are striving towards the 2030 carbon neutrality objective together with our customers and our owner. That is why we want to develop our lunch options and other offerings in a lower-carbon direction. The Climate Meal campaign gives us valuable tools for reaching this goal,” says Head of Division Ritva Mähönen from Palmia.

Restaurants taking part in the campaign will be provided with Clonet Oy’s OpenCO2.net-based Climate Calculator for meals, in addition to which they will have free access to Unilever Food Solutions’ CO2 calculator. Customers of Jamix, a cloud based kitchen intelligence system, can take part by utilising the service’s own carbon footprint calculator.

The Climate Meal campaign is being implemented by the City of Helsinki’s innovation company Forum Virium Helsinki. The collaboration partners in the campaign are the City of Helsinki, HSY, Unilever Food Solutions, Jamix, Clonet, Lounastaja, TableOnline and Positive Impact.

Restaurants can sign up for the Climate Meal campaign at ilmastoannos.fi.