Compass Group PLC (CPG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, and thank you for joining us for Deep Dive on Sustainability. First, let me introduce you to our panel of experts that you'll be hearing from today. Dominic Blakemore, Shelley Roberts, Amy Keister, Carolyn Ball and Ryan Holmes. We also have the pleasure of hearing from Julia Collins, Founder and CEO of Planet Forward, who help us calculate our carbon footprint according to the latest standards. To begin, here is Dominic Blakemore, our Group Chief Executive.

Hello everyone, today you'll hear about the progress we're making in sustainability and our focus in this area contributes tangible commercial benefit. Sustainability isn't new to us. It's deeply ingrained in our culture. Central is the way we conduct business and intrinsic to our success. You'll see how it's embedded in our management and performance framework, driving every dimension of our global business. For example, we know sustainability is a competitive advantage that helps us win new business, both from first-time outsourcers and from other larger and regional players. We're continuously evolving our offer to remain relevant and to serve our consumers what they want, whilst offering insights on the environmental impacts of certain foods. We also recognize that health and well-being often go hand-in-hand with sustainability. As a result, we're combining thought leadership, culinary expertise and technology to achieve our goals. This is highly valued by our clients for whom we are a trusted adviser in this area, creating mutually beneficial long-term partnerships. One priority for us is to reduce food waste. Over 6 years ago, we started a movement to ignite change around food waste, which has since become a global phenomenon. Reducing food waste is not only good for the planet, but also good for business. Tracking and reporting of waste helps us to be more efficient in our operations helping reduce costs and mitigate inflation. There's not one single solution to our shared challenge and we need everyone to do their parts. Our people are making lots of incremental changes across thousands of units and sharing these best practices around our group. I'm confident that our commitment and thought leadership is inspiring our clients, consumers, employees and suppliers to help find collective solutions and accelerate delivery to reach our climate net 0 target by 2050. With that, I'll hand back to Agatha.

Thank you, Dominic. To start, it's worth reminding you about the significant growth potential of our industry. Currently, the food services market is estimated to be at least $300 billion, half of which is still managed in-house, representing a huge opportunity for Compass. According to recent studies, Gen Z and millennials make up approximately 40% of the global workforce and this is set to rise to about 60% by 2030. So why does this matter? These generations are the most vocal about the impact of climate change and are looking for food options that are healthier for them and the planet. As they reduce their reliance on animal proteins, they are increasing their consumption of Plant Forward meals and are also advocating for local sourcing. They are consumers today and the decision makers of tomorrow. It's important to note that regardless of the generation, not all consumers want the same. And as Dominic said earlier, we must always provide our consumers with a wide range of food choices, where we can add value is by giving consumers the insights and information to make their own decisions. To reach our ambitious goal, we need to form partnerships on many different levels. One of those, of course, is with our suppliers. Recently, we held a first of its kind roundtable with 8 of our top suppliers to encourage future forward thinking on reducing emissions. We asked them to be bold in their thinking and to utilize a diverse client and consumer base as a safe trial ground to test new concepts and packaging. We are also supporting local and diverse suppliers. In the U.S. nearly 40% of all produce and dairy is sourced from local producers, nurturing these suppliers and giving them access to our scale enables them to invest back in their own operations for the longer term. For us, this is much more than a compliance exercise. It's a passion. Nothing encapsulates this more than Bon Appétit management company. Our journey together began over 20 years ago with the acquisition of Bon Appétit, a dedicated pioneer of sustainability. The founders who still lead the business today believed in the farm to fork model of locally sourced, restaurant-quality food, cooked from scratch and also using seasonal ingredients. And in the '90s, the company began connecting directly with the local suppliers. And over the years, they started to address other issues in the food systems such as sourcing sustainable seafood and the use of antibiotics in food production. Today, their proposition of food service for a sustainable future continues to resonate very strongly with clients and consumers. It's been hugely successful commercially. Since we acquired Bon Appétit, its revenues have increased tenfold to more than $1.5 billion. This business is a perfect example of how innovation and sustainability can lead to commercial success. This underpins our confidence in setting industry-leading standards and ambitions, as Amy will now explain.

Thank you, Agatha. Compass was the first in our sector to publish a worldwide commitment to reach climate Net Zero by 2050 and be carbon neutral on Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Our goals aligned with science-based target criteria outlined by the Paris Climate Agreement, which seeks to prevent global warming above 1.5 degree Celsius. The commitment is bold where we have direct impact and reasonable where we depend on others. To help us, we partnered with Planet Forward, the leading climate management platform for consumer companies. Planet Forward provides the tools to understand and reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Our initial focus is to decarbonize our own operations. This is where we can make the most immediate and material impact. To break it down, Scope 1 and 2 are emissions within our control. These deal directly with our company cars and delivery fleet emissions and the emissions attributed to the energy used in the buildings we own. We've reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 16% compared to our 2019 baseline by utilizing renewable energy in the United Kingdom and France. In the U.S., Canteen launched the first carbon-neutral vending branch. 98% of our emissions sit under Scope 3 and are related to the products we purchase. Although these emissions are not entirely within our control, we can influence change through menu choices, reducing food waste or by working with suppliers to contribute to reductions. We have improved our methodology to measure emissions on a volume basis rather than spend, which is a more accurate reflection of our Scope 3 emissions. Our most recent data shows an approximate 30% reduction in our Scope 3 emissions for purchased goods compared to our 2019 baseline. As we continue to decarbonize, we focus on areas with the greatest impact: firstly, reducing food waste, which has the dual benefit of being good for the environment while also reducing costs. Secondly, menu reformulation, creating delicious meals with more plant-based proteins that our customers want. And lastly, by partnering with our suppliers to decarbonize throughout the food chain. Let's now hear from one of our climate consultants Planet Forward about how we leverage their life cycle analysis database, providing insights into our emissions. Julia Collins is the Founder and CEO of Planet Forward. Julia was also the co-founder of Zume Pizza, and she became the first Black woman unicorn when she created a venture-back tech company valued at over $1 billion. In addition to leading Planet Forward, Julia sits on the Climate Collaborative Board, the Food for Climate League Board and the Advisory Council for launch with Goldman Sachs.

I'm Julia Collins, the Founder and CEO of Planet Forward. At Planet Forward, we're advising companies like Compass on how to decarbonize through the process of measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our Scope 3 emissions modeling capabilities allow Planet Forward to provide granular insights on supply chain emissions all the way down to the farm level. These insights can support Compass in making actionable steps toward its climate goals. Our science-based approach is aligned with the highest global standards and in fact more than a third of our team are climate experts and scientists. We've worked with Compass teams in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and France to move from spend-based carbon accounting to volume-based accounting, allowing us to surface a much clearer picture of supply chain emissions as well as identify hotspots. To date, we've identified the highest impact opportunities to reduce emissions as well as to improve accounting. These include moving from high to lower emissions food products including reducing food miles, improving the quality of data in the supply chain to provide a better understanding of sourced location, agricultural production and processing practices and of course, continuing to focus on waste reduction by improving and providing more options for waste diversion. We are so excited to support Compass as the most admired food service business as they continue to grow. Thanks to the entire Compass team for showing such strong leadership on this issue backed by measurable and concrete actions.

Now let's focus on how sustainability helps drive business performance at Compass through our MAP framework. Over to you, Shelly.

Thanks, Amy. Let me start with how sustainability is a key commercial growth driver, that's positively impacting MAP 1, which is our client sales and marketing. There's no doubt that increasing awareness of climate change is a contributing factor to driving more companies to outsource their food and services. Our leadership in sustainability is giving us 3 clear competitive advantages. Firstly, clients are seeking support from us to reach their own climate targets as we're part of their Scope 3 emissions. By decarbonizing our menus, reducing food waste in partnership with our clients, we reduce our footprint as well as theirs. So we're increasingly advising our C-suite clients on how we can provide measurable support to deliver their sustainability goals. In fact, this breadth and capability has become a rite of entry in many tenders across our sectors. One example is a global tender that we're currently working on, which beyond the obvious initiatives of food waste and packaging, we're helping them to reduce water usage and influence behaviors through education. Secondly, clients need to see auditable evidence of this decarbonization progress. To do it on their own would require them to invest significantly in systems, linking supply chain data to consumption and transaction data. It's complex and expensive, and they can't justify this level of investment. The ESG regulation landscape is changing rapidly, and our clients are faced with increased disclosure requirements. We can help them by providing them with auditable data and enhanced reporting, which are difficult for the self operators and smaller players to produce. We've got a strong digital strategy, to develop operational tools to track progress. Here's an example from a unit in Australia. The same digital approach has led to a recent win in France, where we're measuring the carbon footprint across a large education client. To further reduce carbon, we're substituting some animal proteins with certified sustainable alternatives, sourcing local produce and using electric vehicles and recovering a 100% of our bio waste. The third competitive advantage is this: our end consumers want more transparency to help them make better informed decisions that support their health and sustainability outcomes. Compass is developing the insight and the data to help them make these decisions more easily. To achieve this, we're deploying a suite of tools across geographies based on rich consumer feedback. We recently surveyed 35,000 workers across 26 countries to understand their workplace preferences, which included their motivations around sustainability. I'm going to come back to this later on. So the combination of these 3 differentiators is helping us to win business. Our first-time outsourcing run rate is the best it's ever been at 41% of new business across EME, APAC and LATAM, moving closer to the level we achieved in North America, our initiatives and our tailored client approach to sustainability are converting into new business wins and creating a closer alignment with our clients. For example, all of our global clients have cited that our sustainability efforts formed part of their decision-making criteria when awarding us their contracts. Similarly, in the U.K. 80% of new business wins in the last 12 to 18 months asked for evidence that we are measuring our emissions. And in Australia, nearly 50% of the decision-making in recent bids has included sustainability credentials. Finally, in the U.S., sustainability is growing in importance for clients in all lines of business, and it's a crucial contributor to our incredible growth and retention. So back to you Amy.

We are thinking big and scaling fast, which is incredibly exciting. That energy inspires our team and encourages more clients to move in the same direction and we are working to accelerate the development of climate-friendly solutions, recognizing the growing importance of interconnected environmental indicators, such as water and biodiversity in the context of global health and nutrition. To facilitate this, we have started utilizing SEDEX, a platform to assess and drive ethical and responsible sourcing practices in our supply chain. The platform is a combination of supplier self-assessment questionnaires, third-party audits and industry-specific risk research. This data offers insight into supply chain risks, including biodiversity at both the country of origin and site-specific levels, which we leverage to inform our risk rate gain.

Let's now think about MAP 2, our consumer sales. As I mentioned before, to better understand our consumers and their motivations, we commissioned Mintel to conduct a global survey to learn about trends in the workplace. The findings showed that providing a sustainable food offer at work was paramount. Over 70% of workers expected employers to proactively promote sustainability in their workplace. And it's the younger generations who are demanding planet-friendly options with 63% of Gen Z workers advocating for more plant-based options. They are growing part of our client and consumer base and so we're already adapting our offer to meet their needs. Here's Carolyn and Ryan with some examples of how we're responding.

Thanks Shelley. The quality of our data is becoming increasingly important. We know the analytical insight provides and how well we use it and forms better decision-making for the benefit of the business and everyone we're seeking to serve. But it also gives our operators the opportunity to inspire clients and their customers with stories that have real substance. And it is real substance that all our stakeholders rightly want. A great example is the Billie Eilish concert we cased for last year at the O2 Arena in London. Levy, our Sports & Leisure brand developed a fully plant-based carbon footprinted menu. Food sales were up 8% against a standard event day, showing clear alignment with the preferences of the audience and inspiring confidence in partnerships with our other clients. The O2 contract has since been renewed and the ability to evidence measurable sustainability impacts for the benefit of the clients and all their customers was a key part of the decision to their great credit and in support of our focus on net new growth. Levy U.K. is not only winning new business, they also maintained their 100% client retention rate last year, again showing strong alignment with their growing client base.

To educate and influence consumer behavior, we use a number of initiatives in the kitchen and in our communications. In the U.K., our business and industry sector partnered with the University of Oxford. We used their eco-labeling and insights to measure the environmental impact of our meals that we serve across hundreds of workplace restaurants. We're the first contract cater to do this and it provided a springboard for wider analysis of provenance across the U.K. and Ireland. It's made us think more deeply about how we approach sustainability within the workplace using techniques such as menu language and positioning in order to nudge consumers into making better and more informed choices, not just ticking a box. In the U.S. our chart was Higher Education business helps consumers make choices, which are aligned with their environmental and social impact values, which we know is important to Gen Z. This includes using climate labeling nationwide, developing Plant Forward education events and dining spaces and providing students with sustainability internship opportunities. Our culinarians continuously developed dishes that are even more healthy, sustainable and inclusive and also delicious with no compromises on flavor. We are now rolling this approach out across the Compass Group. Turning now to how sustainability can help manage costs, here's Amy.

Let's discuss food waste for a moment as well as developing delicious and nutritious dishes. The more chefs are able to manage food waste, the better we're able to control food costs. We call this MAP 3 which accounts for about 30% of end unit costs. Studies suggest that if the world's food waste was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. We've been raising awareness of this issue for the past 7 years through our Stop Food Waste Day campaign. Our ambition is to share practical tools, which will help to change behavior in a way that will prevent waste. This includes changing how meals are planned, inspiring others to waste less, sharing skills and finally, repurposing food by redistributing it to the local community. Launched by us in 2017 Stop Food Waste Day has become the largest single day of action in the fight against food waste, reaching over 90 million people this year and is endorsed by the leading NGO ReFED.

Chefs play an essential role in preventing waste. We are creative and obsessed with food. Our challenge is to find ways to transform, waste byproducts and leftovers into exciting and innovative and delicious dishes. One example of how we are leading the way here is the Rule of Five created by our Morrison's Health Care sector in the U.S. Before an ingredient touches our kitchens, we incorporate that item into a minimum of 5 dishes across all day parts of our food offer. Why 5, because by using the ingredient in 5 different ways, we are not having to throw anything away. It pushes us to think about how that product can be used for breakfast, lunch, dinner and hospitality. The Rule of 5 has been so successful across 3,800 kitchens that we are now adapting it to be rolled out globally.

We use different tools to measure waste. One of them is our proprietary digital waste tool, Waste Not 2.0, which was built by chefs for chefs. This tool helps identify opportunities to reduce food waste and gives managers the ability to analyze data and find long-lasting solutions. We have scaled up our food waste technology across the group to over 8,000 kitchens, representing our most material sites. As a result of these actions, last year, we saw a 30% reduction in food waste and we're linking the management incentives to the rollout of waste measurement tools.

Digital tools also help us to reduce waste through a demand-led model such as preorder or cook-to-order. Our proprietary tools can help us reduce or remove waste significantly by improving procurement accuracy and making it even more convenient for the consumer.

Since announcing our commitment to reach Climate Net Zero by 2030 in the U.K. and Ireland, we have been focusing on 3 key decarbonization levers. These are our ingredients, our supply chain and our sales mix. It is the data quality and insight in each of these levers that will continue to grow our competitive advantage, providing evidence of measurable progress in the material impact areas you've heard referenced by us all, strong partnerships with industry experts further adds to the credibility and to the value this work represents to our clients, and it continues to grow the knowledge of our teams as they work across their different disciplines. Examples include the counsel and guidance of Professor Charles Godfrey, projects with the University of Oxford and a strategic partnership with U.K. tech company Foodsteps to accelerate the decarbonization of the 180 million meals we serve across over 4,000 locations every year. This partnership is a huge step forward in our ability to measure, reduce and to report our environmental impacts from farm to fork with increasingly greater accuracy. There's much work still to do but the combination of pragmatism, clear prioritization and our intentional partnerships is helping to inform and to empower the business, those we work with and all those we exist to serve together.

Compass is a decentralized business. This means that leveraging best practice is an essential part of how we evolve our commercial offer to maintain our competitive advantage globally. Everyone has to play a part. Here is an example of how our chefs create change.

It's all about harnessing economy skills to positively influence environmental outcomes. This is central to our board-sponsored global culinary forum, where chefs learnings through chefs across the world. One of these initiatives is getting even closer to our procurement colleagues to source fresh, local, season ingredients that are better for the environment and equally delicious. And we're reducing carbon by creating delicious recipes with a plant-forward focus using proteins such as lentils, pulses or beans. Let me give you an example. We created a 50/50 burger, which uses British wild mushrooms directly from our supplier in Leicestershire, which normally would have been wasted. Not only does it taste delicious but it significantly cuts emissions with 50% less animal protein. It was recently featured on BBC News as part of our work with the University of Oxford. By applying our customer insights, we can make a big difference. For example, we know that by listing planet-friendly options at the top of menus, the uptake improves. And we've deliberately moved away from labeling dishes as vegetarian or vegan again, to increase the uptake. But this isn't about removing meat altogether. It's about reducing our reliance on animal proteins. We are very aware of consumer preference in all of this. A good example of increasing the plant content is in our U.K. defense, offshore and remote sector, which serves over 12 million meals to service personnel. By including more vegetables, we've reduced our reliance on meat and as of May this year, 38% of meals in defense were plant forward. And in Business & Industry, we're using 40% less meat across the top 12 selling dishes.

The combination of plant-based meals, food waste reduction and smart purchasing is creating a powerful virtuous circle of environmental benefits. With heightened inflation, we've also used many of these initiatives to mitigate rising costs for our clients and consumers. So as you've seen, our approach to sustainability, particularly around the operational changes not only reduces our carbon footprint, but also contributes to the success of our business through supporting our clients to achieve their goals. It's unlocking new business wins and it's building closer client alignment to support long-term retention. Increasingly, the self-operated and smaller player market is valuing the economies of scale that we can bring to support their investment in sustainability and decarbonization of their supply chain. This is creating an enduring competitive advantage for Compass. Our chefs are instrumental in making environmentally friendly choices that also resonate with our consumers. We educate, we nudge consumers to make better choices. Food waste reduction efforts and planet-friendly menus are two areas which will continue to be our primary focus. As you've heard, we've made good progress to date with a reduction in our Scope 3 emissions for purchased goods by 30% compared to our 2019 baseline. And as we work with our suppliers to decarbonize, we'll encourage them to think differently. The scale of our operations gives them access to a large customer base to justify their investment in innovation. And finally, we'll continue to engage with a wider range of stakeholders within our ecosystem to lead the industry and bring the best advice and solutions to our clients and consumers.

Thank you, Dominic, Shelley, Amy, Carolyn and Ryan and special thanks to Julia for sharing their thoughts with us today. So now we look forward to taking your questions. In just a moment, we will take a 10-minute break to allow those of you who would like to ask questions time to dial in to the conference line. [Operator Instructions]. We'll now break for 10 minutes. [Break]

Welcome to Compass Group Sustainability Deep Dive question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. I will now turn the call over to Agatha Donnelly, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Priscilla, and thank you all for joining us for our Q&A today. Just as a reminder, today, we're focusing on the environmental side of ESG and our journey to Climate Net Zero. And we ask you that you limit your questions to this topic. I'll now hand it back over to Priscilla.

Thank you, Agatha. [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Jaafar Mestari from BNP Paribas.

I have 3 questions, if that's all right. So firstly, food waste is something that came up a few times. You implied that there would be savings. Obviously, if you waste less, what's the flow-through here? If you reduce food waste by x percent, is it in the right items that you actually also reduce your food costs by x percent? And then do you actually keep the savings or do you return the savings to the customer because well to win the contract, you've pitched to them that you would be reducing food waste, so they know it and they expected, et cetera? Second question, there's sometimes a tendency in the corporate world to focus on the areas where sustainability is aligned with corporate profits anyway, like reducing food waste. It's win-win for Compass with the clients for the planet. I'm sure there's also areas where more sustainable practices are directly conflicting with profits. Can you maybe talk about and give examples of some of the more difficult decisions you're making where you know it will cost the organization and how you approach them to subsidize them elsewhere through efficiencies to pass them on to the clients, et cetera? And lastly, if your internally developed carbon accounting tools and emissions reductions, processes become best-in-class. Is this something that at some point you can monetize outside of your own food service clients. So like you monetize procurement with you one day sell just the suite of sustainability tools to some SMB businesses? Or would you charge to measure and report carbon outside the [ Canteen ] as well for your clients, things like that.

Thanks, Jaafar, and thanks for the questions there. So to kick us off, very wide-ranging thoughts there. So in terms of food waste, [ ESG ] right, that is the key feature of the video because that is really our primary focus. That's where we see we can make the most material step change on our decarbonization journey, and that's also something that we feel we can control more directly. So I mean, I think you know us by now that we're such a highly decentralized organization and across our 50,000 units, every single one of them is different. We're in different client sites, we're in different sectors. We're operating slightly differently in all those ways. So food wastage is one of those levers that we're pulling in amongst all the other levers that we use to manage the margin. And I think you've really seen us work hard on food waste at a time where we were also trying to mitigate inflation. So certainly, mitigating food waste is helpful to our bottom line but it is just one of the levers we pulled. So food cost is about 30% of our in-unit costs. And as we reduce our food waste, we are obviously reducing our food costs as well. And to your question about, do we give that back or do we keep it? I think the way we look at it is that we are giving back, we're using our clients' resources efficiently, but we're also using our own resources efficiently as well as using the planet's resources efficiently. So it's very much part of our operating model to consider that and to actively look for that benefit. At the same time, it's something that is helping us to manage all those exogenous factors like food inflation. I think another lever that we pull in that regard in relation to food waste is actually getting the benefit of the information, the data from what we're wasting because that's telling us what consumers are enjoying and not enjoying, which is allowing us to reformulate our menus. So it's not a direct line of sight, but it really comes into the equation in terms of what drops through to the bottom line. In terms of your second question about sustainability being a win-win, that's absolutely how we see it. We actually don't see it as a competing objective. We see it as being very complementary to what we're doing because it really is just part of everything we do. And I think some of the menu planning examples that Ryan covered in the video was really helpful to demonstrate how we think about this in the round. So when we're thinking about what's healthy, we're thinking about what's nutritious, we're also thinking about what's good for planet. And so it really is just about bringing in another dimension to that equation. And what's been really helpful to our culinary team is actually to have the depth, the data that sits behind that. And you heard Planet Forward talk about our new partnership and how we're able to get much more granular. So that we're actually able to measure these things in advance. And so when Ryan, for example, is formulating menu, you can actually see based on different dishes on the menu, what the carbon footprint of that menu is going to be. And so we get the opportunity to actually shape our carbon footprint going forward rather than just rely on historic reporting on to where we've been before. In terms of difficulty in this, I think we would all say that we are working on this road together with our suppliers. And so we have to. If we're part of an ecosystem here where we need to act in conserve in -- in this context with everybody in our value chain. And so outside of our direct decarbonization efforts was very nice working closely in partnership with our suppliers to make sure that we're working with them to decarbonize their value chains as well. And then finally, in terms of tools, a best-in-class. We absolutely are developing these tools. We're rolling them out. We're proud to have rolled them out across 8,000 sites, which covers about 75% of our spend so far. And yes, certainly, in terms of we have food by clients who also can in due course benefits from these tools, and that would be one way where we'd be able to expand the reach of these because, of course, we're conscious if other people use these tools, that's going to help to reduce food waste, and that's going to benefit the planet as well.

We will move on with Vicki Stern from Barclays.

I got a couple of questions. You mentioned you're winning contracts on sustainability from sort of all sources first from outsourcing, small and large players. So just to what extent do you think your competitors large and small are able to win on sustainability? Or just how far ahead do you think Compass is on all that? And sort of what exactly is helping you win specifically versus those competitors when you're winning these contracts? And second one is just on management remuneration around these objectives. Is that sort of top level only? Or how deep does the incentivization go around these topics throughout the organization?

Thanks, Vicki, for the question. So let's start with the large and small players. So I think, certainly, as we mentioned in the video, there's a lot that sits behind having the data at your fingertips to be able to -- for our chefs to be able to use for consumers, to be able to understand the choices that they're making as they select their lunch. And there's a lot of data and systems capabilities that's behind us, but certainly small operators wouldn't have in the wheelhouse to be able to bring there. And for us, that's very much part of our operating model, our ordering platforms, the data we have around procurement that sits in our Foodbuy systems, we have those. And so we're actually just able to leverage an existing asset to grow our competitive advantage in the space. In terms of the other large suppliers, I think -- we players in the industry, this is where really our scale does benefit us and our relative scale does benefit us. We obviously have our Foodbuy organization, which procures over $30 billion of food and that really helps us to have very deep relationships with our suppliers, which helps us to have different level of conversations with them in terms of innovating, in terms of finding new solutions and then bringing those solutions back into our organization. I think what I would say also in terms of why is this ultimately helping us with new business. It's because this is a key win theme and a key problem, I suppose, that our clients have that they're looking for solutions to. And they've set their own goals around Net Zero and they really need our help because we're part of their Scope 3 emissions. And so in us helping them to give them the data about what decisions their staff are making when they have lunch each day. That's really helping them to understand opportunities in their carbon footprint. And I thought just thinking about that, it might be useful for Carolyn to share an example of some work that she did with the client just around some direct decisions. But by having that data, it's really helped them to make some changes.

Thanks, Shelley. There are two specific examples, which we will focus on active reformulation to reduce the carbon embodied on the plate, full credit to Ryan and his chef team for supporting this so brilliantly. And as Shelley articulated, it's the credibility and quality of the advisory that sits around that. And what we're increasingly finding is that clients are interested in engaging with the specificity of the data that sits behind it. So our ability to be able to show that by reformulating a recipe into Mushroom Wellington, it reduced embodied carbon replaced by North of 7 to less than 1, and we saw a 30% uptake. That's a really good example, I think, where the menu comes into play, but we're also finding that there's an opportunity to add color and compelling stories with that data sitting in the underbelly. An example of that is a webinar where this particular client was significantly large and invited a huge amount of their employee workforce. We described to them how the 60,000 bananas that they buy on an annual basis, could be swapped to purchases of things more like apples, bananas 110 [ grands ] and an Apple is 60. So we try to bring the detail, the data and also the practical examples of where we can really create change. And I think a key part of this, which you have heard throughout the video is we fully recognize that this cannot be about compromise in order to be able to accelerate a pace, we have to really align with customer preferences. And so all of the work that we've been doing has really been engaging in those 3 levers of ingredient, supply chain, sales mix. And we've been really encouraged with the work that we've been increasing in [indiscernible] of the client.

So I think just coming back to the first part of the question, I'll come on to remuneration in a second. It's really that measurability that we're able to bring to our clients that distinguishes us, when we're able to talk about -- when we're able to measure the impact on the results that we're achieving in their carbon footprint as well. And as I mentioned, that's a key win theme and that's what we're finding is resonating most strongly across our client base. In terms of management remuneration, yes, 15% of our short-term incentives are on sustainability metrics, 10% is on safety and 5% is directly on food waste measurement. And that's because, as we talked about in the video, it is the area that we feel is our key focus in being able to decarbonize our operations.

And just sort of how deep down the organization, does that at 15% of incentives run?

So that's our incentives for our management teams. In terms of our culinary teams that we talked about here, we -- there are other ways that we're working with our culinary teams. So for example, I wonder [ Bryant ], whether you want to talk maybe about the Marcus Wareing program and how chefs are incentivized to actually participate in that program and how that benefits sustainability.

Yes. Sustainability is absolutely key for us in -- from a culinary perspective. We have a program designed just for our chefs, for our seniors chefs in the business called the Marcus Wareing Forward program, and as a red thread through there on sustainability, specifically food waste that gets taught to them at every single session they come along to. And we found that it's really important and educating our culinarians is a key factor behind this cause.

We will move on with our next participant, Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley.

Two questions, please. You gave us some good examples of MAP 1 with contract wins, that makes perfect sense. I was quite interested to explore the MAP 2 consumer angle, you gave us a good example of that on bananas and I think, mushrooms. But is there anything else you can give us to talk about consumer behavior, purchasing spend, all that? I mean, any sort of impact on like-for-like volumes that you might be seeing anywhere? And then secondly, all sort of bigger picture question and perhaps related to one earlier. I mean, your clients have a bigger sort of carbon focus on just catering. There's obviously many other utility type emissions there. I mean do your systems link well into the other forms of measurement. Is there any sort of benefit with working with some of the FM providers and sort of simplifying your clients' measurement and tech tools.

Thanks, Jamie. Great to bring out the consumer angle. So I think I'll hand over to Ryan in a moment just to talk about some of the work he's been doing on consumer preferences. But certainly, this is something that we've been studying deeply. So recently, we did a survey of 35,000 workers to really understand as they return to workplace exactly what their workplace preferences are. And it was really enlightening to see how their views varied across the generations. And I think certainly, our Gen Z consumers we're very, very vocal in terms of 63% of them wanting plant-based options. And I think as a result of that insight because we know Gen Z is going to be 60% of the workforce by 2030. We really have taken some of those insights right back into our menu formulation, right back into the choices that we're making available. Because what we know is we don't have one homogenous consumer in the workplace. We've got some millennials. We've got some Gen Z, we've got some baby boomers. And so we see our role is to provide that variety and that choice for every type of consumer that is going to have lunch that day and then provide them with the information so that they can make that choice. So Ryan, do you want to give some examples of that?

Absolutely. I think the most important thing is it's all about us making and creating tasty and delicious food. That's a given whether that's healthy, whether it's more sustainable, whether it's less meat in there, it's all about quality and delicious food, that's really important. But what we're trying to do is make the consumer make more informed choices. We're still going to have meat on our menus. It's up to them to kind of make that choice and decision. But what we want to do is help them with that. So we -- our plant-based options at the top of the menus are more sustainable dishes go up at the top of the menus as well. What we have within our B&I sector is reevaluate our top 12 best-selling dishes. What we've done to those dishes is still maintain the amount of protein there, but reduce the meat content. We've increased the amount of vegetables in there. We switched into whole grains. And what we've seen is a massive uptake in those dishes for our consumers. They've been really well taken by them and they've not noticed any changes in there. So we're making lots of changes to the planet with those choices.

Thanks, Ryan. Going on to your second part of your question, Jamie. So Amy, do you want to maybe just talk about how we've been helping some of our clients with the measurement side?

Definitely. I think it's a great point that you bring up, it is greater than food, and our support services is also extremely focused on sustainability, and they have very robust tools as well. So they're able to work side-by-side with our clients to help them get lead certifications, well-being certifications, as well as perform self-audit and with the self-audit, they're able to measure the energy, the water and even look at the air quality. So there's a great example of a very large hospital system in the U.S., where across all locations, they've been able to improve the air quality by 25%, reduced the overall kilowatts by 2.5 million as well as save over 1.2 million gallons of water to really enhance our sustainability efforts throughout the building.

We'll move on with Jarrod Castle from UBS.

Kind of 3 actually for me. Firstly, you've spoken a lot about reduction in emissions but what about sustainability as it relates to supply chains, for instance, sustainable fishing, et cetera. Just if you could give any color there. Secondly, just on procurement, obviously, but the sounds of the things you have to expand the number of providers, especially local providers. How do you think about that when I guess the bigger providers give you more scale or better price discounts especially with regards to food buy. So how do you feed that into kind of the cost base volume decision, I guess? And then just lastly, I mean, clearly, sustainability is important to your clients to the consumers, I guess. But where would you rank it in terms of the selling process? Is it still price, convenience, choice that ranks ahead? How -- where would you put sustainability in the pecking order of what results in the contract being concluded?

Thanks, Jarrod. So how about I'll take your last question, then I'll hand over to Amy for the sustainable fishing and the procurement question. It's really a good question actually because I think if you think about the consumers and then you think about clients, I think, absolutely, our consumers, as I was saying earlier, from that research different consumers want different things. At the moment, obviously, cost of living pressures are very front and center. And so what we're finding is we do need to have a value offer. But as I said before, it's really about providing choice and range. And so we will always have something that's going to appeal to a consumer who's most focused on price but we're also increasingly having offers available to consumers, which might still be at a low price but have a sustainability offering attached to it as well. So it really is about having everything available and allowing our consumers to choose. In relation to clients, as I said earlier, that's laddering up to being more than about the food. So really, we're engaging with our clients with the C-suite, who are wanting trackability and traceability. They're needing to do TCFD reporting as well. They really want the data. And so it's as much about actually being able to bring that data and bring that measurability to provide them with that advise and that full leadership. And let's face it, this is, everybody is discovering this all together so we're able to actually help them as to how we thought about that is and advise them on how we are able to move from -- through this to be able to provide transaction data and let that up into carbon emissions data and helping in that regard. So in terms of where that ranks for our clients is absolutely in the top 3 requirements and certainly in terms of our global clients, they're looking for us to really help them with that. And that's why you saw in the video. We talked about that being a high key decision criteria in all of our global clients most recently. Amy, over to you on the fishing.

Great question on the fishing. Actually, one of the first areas we tackled when we were looking at our sustainability journey, and this was back in 2005. We partnered in the U.S. with the seafood launch. Globally, we work with Marine Stewart certified. And we think it's really critical that we're aligning with the industry standards. And so it's not Compass standard. And so in the U.S., we make sure that we only purchase for green and yellow rated items. Globally, when we're looking at the marine stewardship, we're looking at 1, 2s and 3s, so no 4s and 5s. We also leverage our scale to educate our guests actually coming up next month is National Seafood month. So there will be great marketing materials, again, in partnership with Seafood Watch and MSC and educate guests that they can bring these practices back as well. Great question on the local. We really pride ourselves to make sure that we're supporting the local communities and where we live and work. Nearly 40% of our purchases of owned produce and dairy come from local and small from regional farmers. We're not overly concerned on looking at the price aspect, as we said, leading with delicious. Our local tomato in the summer is always going to taste better than something that has been trucked in from miles away. Also with local, we think it's very important that we're focusing on diverse suppliers as well. So this is something that's really important to our clients. And so we've had nearly $500 million of spend on local and diverse. I mean, the suppliers. Thank you.

We will move on with Karl Green from RBC.

A couple of questions, please. The first one, just regarding where perhaps end clients don't have a choice. So the suggestions, for example, that universities in the U.K. could move to kind of enforce vegan menus. And we might see that replicated in part of the U.S. as well. Will be your best guess as to the impact on participation rates, where people don't get a choice about the kind of menu composition that they're looking at? And then secondly, we haven't really heard much today about regenerative agriculture, which is a really hot topic in terms of carbon reductions in agricultural supply chains. Just any thoughts there about maybe breaking that link between the kind of meat, bad vegan goods type discussion and maybe putting protein options forward, which people want to eat and are actually good for the environment as well or at least not harmful.

Thanks very much. So I'll hand over the minutes to Carolyn to talk about the regenerative agriculture side. But as you heard in the video, the [ Higher Ed ] market, I know we referenced in the video, the U.S. market. But that's where we are serving a consumer who is obviously very sustainably minded but our strategy there is really to provide them with choice again. This is really about integrating plant into the dishes and providing options for everybody because ultimately, I'm sure you choose your lunch every day. Everybody wants the opportunity to decide what they would like to eat. Our -- we see our role as educating and providing those choices and making them available, not dictating anything.

I mean I think what's really important to note is that the focus that we've had on regenerative agriculture recognizes the role it can play in the food industry's overall transition. Equally, we are acutely aware of the challenges in accurately modeling, impacting scalability given the complexity and also the political economy of food production in crowded islands such as the U.K. and Ireland. We're also really mindful of the expected global increased demand of 30% to 50% by mid-century. And I think what we're becoming really mindful and acutely aware with our clients in these conversations is that we know better data and better definitions are required. And so our modeling must be anchored in the specifics of our supply chain and commercial reality. And the key to this is that we arrive at a practical approach that isn't overly simplistic, and that's what we're really working hard on. I think what means -- what this really means as well is if we think about high-yielding agriculture, of course, it can be due to giving us space of by diversity. There are elements of industrial practice that, of course, need addressing, including how we factor in externalities. But we are really focused on supporting a wider food market in its transition, so they better serve both private and society goals.

I think in the -- just to add to that, in the U.K., we've been conducting some small-scale trials with subs, looking to understand actually how we can experiment and look at the quality of the soil. Do you want to talk a bit more about that?

Yes. To this point, Shelley, so we've been partnering with the [ SAKS ] program looks at supporting [indiscernible] platform in undertaking the ecological footprint. And what we're finding is that, of course, there is growing traction across the U.K. and indeed in other markets where there is a real need to be able to understand and then commercially intensify the right behaviors. And so in addition Compass being part of these programs, we are really focused on the ability that we have to share those learnings across the value market. And by having that specific example, we know that obviously, there's an opportunity to translate that given the breadth and scale, and it's just getting really into the heart of the detail.

We will move on with [ Grant Parsons ] from William Blair.

Maybe just one high-level question on how Waste Management has evolved post COVID. Just given the volatility of attendance at events and work. So I know you guys mentioned your waste, not digital platform and how that could help. But I'm curious if there's been more of a challenge on unexpected volatility over the past year or so on managing food waste.

Thanks very much for the question. I'm going to ask Amy to answer that because she was the founder of Stop Food Waste and all things. Food Waste so Amy over to you.

Great question. This is where we really lean into our digital tools. And so one thing that had changed about rapidly because of the pandemic was having mobile ordering because we weren't -- there was less contact, less efforts. And so with that, we've been able to do a really great job managing our production on the slower days, which is Monday's and Friday's . And so by having people be able to preorder ahead of time, it actually allowed us to know exactly what we should be producing. We were able to manage our food waste in those locations by over 30% looking at those tools. So it's just critical that we're looking at this very holistically. So Waste Not 2.0 helps us measure it on the back end. And then we have robust production tools in all of our markets as well as a lot of digital capabilities.

And I think just sort of bring that back to maybe one of Vicki's questions, these tools that are really helping us to win out over the smaller operators who aren't able to actually measure and demonstrate this kind of capability because Amy just said, it's looking at it in the round. It's not just looking at the food waste dimension. It's actually thinking about the workplace experience and how we can be educating our clients. And Ryan as well.

And our chefs are very talented. They utilize products which are [indiscernible] that they should be wasted and going to the bin, but they can create some fantastic dishes with those. So using those byproducts in the correct way to make really tasty dishes for our consumers to enjoy.

We will move on with our last question from [ Justin Bazalgette ] from EOS Federated Hermes.

The company is clearly doing a lot to deliver on its sustainability goals. I was going to ask some questions about biodiversity, but agricultural sort of methods, but I think you've sort of answered those in a previous question. The second question I had was around your plans to complete the task force for nature-based financial disclosures, whether the company be considering that and how far you've got in your thoughts around that, particularly to look at sort of the resilience for the company in the sort of double materiality that the nature-based sort of focus you have with your supply chain and the risk associated.

Amy, do you want to take that one?

Yes. No, I think it's a great question. And so just to kind of take it up a level, we have been very actively engaged. And actually, in our annual report this year will be our third disclosure of our tax versus climate disclosures, and we take it really serious and what's been really encouraging and exciting is that when we look at the risk, overall, they're relatively immaterial to our business and align with our overarching Net Zero commitment. Our next phase in all of this is looking at the double materiality so that we're able to make sure that we're focusing on the areas that have the greatest impact. And then coming out of that, we'll be focusing on the nature of prospective things. We also have science-based targets as we indicated. And so part of that is looking at the [indiscernible] looking at the land usage, the forest, the land agriculture piece as well. And all of those will be disclosed in our following years annual report. So lots of work is underway. Luckily, everything seems to be in alignment to not only what our overall strategy is, but also what our clients are looking for as well.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating on the Q&A session. I will turn the conference back to Agatha for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you very much again for joining us today, and we will speak with you all on the 20th of November for our full year results. Thank you very much.