NET ZERO

Our environmental and emission reduction efforts (and outcomes) are focussed on:

• offering a plant-based menu with as little beef and meat products as possible, promoting instead tasty and healthy veggie options, offering plant milk at no extra cost (86 tonnes of C02e down to 24 tonnes)

• buying 100% renewable electricity and gas (12 tonnes to zero)

• separating our recyclable and non-recyclable waste, with the non-recyclable waste going to a local waste-to-energy plant (31 tonnes if all went to landfill down to 1 tonne)

We have focussed on these initiatives because they have the biggest impact. They have reduced Life on High's carbon footprint from a baseline of 133 tonnes to a respectable 20 tonnes.

In order to achieve Net Zero, we purchased carbon credits to offset the unavoidable emissions, supporting a Gold Standard Safe Water Access project in Rwanda (ref GSM4996).

LOCAL SOURCING

We work extensively with local suppliers, where the quality of produce available matches our ethos:

Vegetables - TH Brown (Gravesend)

Coffee - roasted in house

Meat & Fish: Chart Farm & Chapmans (Sevenoaks)

Milk - Northiam Dairy (Rye)

Beers & Gin: Westerham Brewery & Greensand Ridge Distillery (Plaxtol)

Bread & Buns - The Sussex Kitchen (Sussex)

Notes on our carbon footprint

The baseline is for a “parallel universe” Life on High, with a regular meat-based menu and no green policies. We've used 2020 emission factors for electricity and gas, and estimates of produce consumption: BBC figures for veggies (0.1kg of co2 per portion) and meat (4kg/portion - the average of beef, lamb and chicken).

With cafes (and coffee) there is often a focus on disposable cups, but these represent a very small part of the total carbon footprint (less than 1 tonne). Switching to plant milk would have a more significant impact, which is why we offer oat milk at no extra cost. Reusable cups are also excellent (avoiding bamboo based cups which can contain bonding resins).

Compostable cups are a good solution IF they can actually be composted in specialised industrial composting facilities, and if we can put them into designated "brown bins" but, they don't compost in landfill... and can contaminate general mixed recycling streams. Sevenoaks does not yet have (to our knowledge) a brown bin compostable system. See https://www.vegware.com/uk/page/composting-regions/