Committed to sustainable development, we always seek to limit our impact on the environment in the decisions we make for the campsite. We operate on a ‘common sense’ basis, asking ourselves lots of questions for each of our major decisions. However, it’s interesting to compare our ‘intuitions’ with reality. In 2023 we asked to take advantage of the support offered by ADEME (Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie) and we were lucky enough to have our application accepted.
Accompanied by Quentin, from the specialist consultancy eCO2 initiative, we carried out a study to measure the carbon impact of the campsite restaurant. More specifically, we analysed the impact of changes to our menu since we took over the campsite in 2018.
Why choose the restaurant? Because food is a sector with a high carbon footprint, sharing the top step of the podium with the transport sector.
In 2022, the carbon footprint per person is estimated at around 10 tonnes CO2e (equivalent), of which 2.5 tonnes will be related to food. We’re not going to stop eating, but we can still have an impact by eating sensibly: local, organic, vegetarian.
GHG: Greenhouse gases
The changes made have enabled us to save 0.4 T CO2e, which is considerable for a small establishment like ours.
The main sources of savings are to be found in the supply chain, with the switch to local products, and in the reduction in the packaging of purchased products.
It should be noted that some of the benefits offered by more sustainable production methods (organic, integrated or other) are difficult to assess in a single-criteria analysis such as this one, such as the management of water or phytosanitary inputs in farming practices. The switch to organic products is therefore not really highlighted in this analysis.
Now that we know more about the criteria that impact on our restaurant’s carbon footprint, we will be continuing to transform our menu. We are also going to make the carbon impact of each dish on our menu more visible. In this way, the restaurant’s customers will be able to choose their menu more responsibly.
Measuring impact is very complex, and you have to take into account a huge number of parameters for the result to make sense. We couldn’t have done it on our own, so thank you to Quentin for supporting us in this process.
