Getting started on your sustainability journey, or looking for more ways that you can improve? This page brings together practical sustainability resources for visitor economy businesses across Bristol, Bath and the wider West of England.
There are plenty of ways to enhance your business, whether it's applying for grants to make your venue more energy efficient, accessing training for your team, or applying for awards and accreditations to spread the word about the great work you're already doing.
Communicating your sustainability credentials
Businesses need to be honest with their customers about their green credentials, but it may not always be clear how to do this. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has developed the Green Claims Code, which sets out 6 key points to check your environmental claims are genuinely green.
By 27 September 2026, EU member states will implement the "Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition" (ECGT) Directive, mandating that all environmental claims be backed by expert verification. This directive bans generic claims like "eco-friendly" and prohibits carbon neutrality claims based on offsets, aiming to end greenwashing.
Learn what the EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT) Directive means for companies, when and which companies may be impacted, and how the Carbon Trust label schemes align with current regulation.
Reduce & Reuse
Food Waste
Too Good To Go is a free app with more than 6 million UK users. By partnering with Too Good To Go, businesses can attract new customers, recover sunk costs and make sure their food gets eaten through the sale of surplus food.
Visit West’s partnership with Too Good to Go means that the administration fee for members is waived.
More than 100,000 Food Waste Hero volunteers rescue good, edible surplus food from nearby businesses and share it with people nearby. Partnering with supermarkets, schools, hospitals, train stations, TV and film sets, and more, Olio helps make sure that nutritious food reaches people, not bins.
Part of South Gloucestershire’s Good Food Strategy. Find out more here.
Unused stock, off cuts and packaging
Collect and re-use industrial by-products, surplus materials, and waste free of charge from the business community. In doing so, they ensure environmental compliance and support corporate social responsibility policy, helping businesses and organisations divert around 200 tonnes from landfill each year. Scrap collected is then transformed into valuable community resources used in all kinds of creative, play, care, educational, therapeutic and community settings across the UK.
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Tool & Link
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What it does
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Why it’s good
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Best for
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Notes
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Assesses the impacts of 34 foods using ingredients and see carbon, water, land impacts
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Very simple, visual, engaging
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Workshops, demos, beginners
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Limited customisation but great for quick insights
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Calculates emissions per meal with ingredient breakdown
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Designed for hospitality, practical for menus
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Tourism businesses, restaurants
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More ‘real-world’ use than BBC tool. Not fully free - demo for free but then paid
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Analyse recipes and compare to climate targets
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Robust, science-based, benchmark comparisons
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More advanced users, credible analysis
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Not specifically a carbon calculator tool but lots of useful resources and tools to support businesses to cut food emissions
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Data on emissions per kg of different foods
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Highly credible, good visuals
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Presentations, storytelling, education
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Not a calculator - data source only
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Carbon labelling and menu impact tools
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Strong focus on communication and nudging behaviour
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Menu design, customer-facing comms
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Not fully free - demo for free but then paid. Good examples/resources
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Visit West Sustainability Champions
Read our Sustainability Policy
