Finnwatch has published three reports examining climate action within the Finnish restaurant sector (available in Finnish here). These reports examined the climate action by the largest companies operating restaurants (read with Google Translate), those operating lunch cafeterias (read with Google Translate), and those running fast-food chains and virtual restaurants (read with Google Translate).The results revealed substantial differences between examined companies. However, none of the companies within the scope of our reports are addressing their overall emissions sufficiently. Many are already paying attention to issues such as energy efficiency and food waste, but measures to minimize the use of high-emission ingredients are still in their infancy. The value chain emissions from food purchases usually account for a vast majority of total emissions for a typical restaurant company.All examined companies have much room for improvements, but some are already leading by example in specific areas. For instance, the fast-food chains Hesburger and Kotipizza have set targets to increase the share of climate-friendly meals to 50 percent of the sales by 2030. Restel, which operates a wide range of restaurants, has incentivized management to increase the share of plant-based options on the menus of its restaurants. Additionally, Kotipizza and all four companies operating lunch cafeterias had calculated the product-specific carbon footprints, with most making this information publicly available to inform customer choices.While all companies offered vegetarian or even vegan options, some performed exceptionally poorly in managing their overall climate impact. Better Food Group, Munchfam, Rolls, ScanBurger, Spoon Food Group and Subway had very little or nothing to show in terms of managing their climate impact from food or otherwise. None of these companies reported their emissions or reduction targets publicly, let alone provided clarity on the measures to actually reduce their climate impact.One opportunity that has been so far largely missed, even among the best-performing companies, is the role of advertising. While some of the examined companies stated that they try to promote plant-based meals alongside those that contain meat, none were able to publicly commit to ending or at least limiting the advertising of the products that contain meat. By continuing to promote the sales of such high-emission products, these companies are making it more difficult to achieve emission reductions.Mitigating climate change requires that all companies take responsibility for their emissions. This means transparent emission reporting, ambitious medium- and long-term reduction targets and concrete measures to achieve these targets. Collaboration within the value chain is also essential. Restaurants must inform their suppliers that changes are needed to achieve their emission reduction targets. While some emission reductions can be achieved in the production with efficiency improvements, shifts in demand are also needed, especially a transition from high-emission animal products to low-emission plant-based alternatives.One thing is crystal clear: restaurants cannot rely solely on external changes in supply chain emissions or customer demand for plant-based options. Simply offering vegetarian or vegan options is an important first step, but passively waiting for the customer preferences to shift is not enough. Effective measures are dependent on the business model in use, but these can include things such as developing new plant-based meals, tweaking the existing recipes to reduce the use of high-emission ingredients and using pricing or climate information such as climate labels to influence the customer choices.

SONJA FINÉR  Monsieur le Président, Je vous écris du petit pays nordique qu’est la Finlande en tant que représentante d'une petite ONG. J'ose vous parler, même si je suis certainement comme une mouche bourdonnant à la fenêtre de l'étage de maintenance de l'Élysée. Une toute petite mouche dans un endroit où vous ne venez jamais.Mes amis sont encore plus invisibles à vos yeux. Ils sont présents dans le monde entier et c'est leur travail qui fait vivre votre palais. Au sens figuré, bien sûr.Permettez-moi de vous en présenter quelques-uns. Le premier de mes amis, appelons-le Shawn. Il produit en Afrique du Sud le platine nécessaire aux industries européennes de l’hydrogène et de l’automobile. Voici sa chambre. Une cabane de quelques mètres carrés en tôle, où s’infiltre l'air pollué de la mine. En été, il y fait une chaleur étouffante, en hiver un froid glacial. La loi exige que l'entreprise minière améliore les conditions de vie et de travail de ses employés. Pourtant, Shawn et ses amis vivent dans leurs petites boîtes de conserve depuis des années. Voici une autre de mes connaissances. Je l'appelle Tin Win. Il travaillait dans une usine de conserves en Thaïlande, produisant des marchandises pour les magasins européens. Son passeport avait été confisqué. Il a dû faire des heures supplémentaires sans compensation et payer des frais élevés à l'agence de recrutement. Pour éviter les évasions, l'usine avait l'habitude d'enfermer ses travailleurs dans de petites pièces après la journée de travail.Mon troisième ami veut rester anonyme. Tout ce que vous pouvez voir, c'est sa main. Il a peur de révéler son identité, parce qu'il est complètement à la merci de son employeur. Il ne sait pas bien lire et travaille dans un pays étranger, où ses conditions de travail ne sont pas au niveau convenu dans son pays d’origine. En Malaisie, il produit de l'huile de palme pour la nourriture que nous, Européens, mangeons, ainsi que pour les biocarburants que nous utilisons dans nos voitures. Monsieur le Président, la France a été le premier pays dans le monde à adopter une loi qui améliore la situation de mes amis invisibles. C'était une excellente nouvelle qui nous a donné de l'espoir. Mais bien que la France soit un grand et puissant pays, elle ne peut pas changer la structure de l’économie mondiale toute seule. C'est pour cela que les décideurs politiques ont travaillé pendant des années ensemble pour élaborer des règles communes pour tous les pays de l'Union européenne afin de mettre fin à l'exploitation des gens et de la planète. Demain vendredi, vous déciderez si ces règles seront mises en place.Moi, la petite mouche et mes amis invisibles, nous ne pouvons qu'espérer que vous ferez ce qui est juste.---Cover image: CC BY-NC-ND © ALDE PartyPicture of Tin Win: Meeri Koutaniemi

Climate change has serious adverse human rights impacts. It negatively affects people's livelihoods, health and wellbeing. To prevent and mitigate these impacts, companies must accept in full their responsibility for their greenhouse gas emissions.The article by Finnwatch titled “Human rights due diligence and the role of carbon offsetting” recently published on Carbon Pulse explores interlinkages between human rights-based corporate climate accountability and carbon offsetting.As the global carbon budget for 1.5 degrees is quickly running out, it is not enough for companies just to reduce emissions, they need to bear responsibility for their unabated emissions, too. The way to do this is carbon offsetting."In addition to implementing a net-zero plan, the direct and indirect emissions that companies cannot immediately cut must be offset", Finnwatch climate policy specialist Lasse Leipola writes. The key message of the article is that without offsets, it is hard for companies to bear responsibility for the adverse human rights impacts of those emissions that cannot be immediately cut. For that reason the focus should be on measures to fix the existing problems with the quality of carbon credits and inadequate safeguards on the projects for humans and the environment.The article calls on policymakers at all levels from the UN to national parliaments to take action to ensure three things: gradually rising minimum quality requirements for carbon credits, clear quality and transparency requirements for making offset-based climate claims, and clear definitions for the role that carbon markets play in their national climate policies."Companies buying and selling carbon credits are also key players. By setting higher standards, they can drive the carbon market forward towards higher quality and show the lawmakers and wider society that carbon markets can be an instrument for climate mitigation and finance", Leipola concludes the article.Finnwatch is and has been active in national and international processes that seek to set clear and strict rules for carbon offsets so they can fill their role as a tool for companies to bear human rights-based responsibility for the emissions that they cannot immediately reduce.

Finnwatch demands swift action in order to ensure that transition is just for the workers of the garment industry, as companies must reduce their emissions at an accelerating pace.

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