reducing our impact

understanding our impact 

at wagamama we’re conscious of our impact on the planet  

as well as the ingredients we use and how we cook them, we’re working to manage the other environmental impacts that our restaurants and operations have. from the energy we use, to our packaging and waste, we make moves to understand more about our impact, and reduce it wherever and however we can 

we’re committed to making continuous steps forward, and when we find a better way to do something we move quickly to make the change 

our big goal is to be net zero by 2040, in line with the Zero Carbon Forum. it’s a big challenge, and every member of our team, across our restaurants and in hq, is committed to making it happen

every restaurant is an opportunity to use less energy, save water, reduce waste and design for a lower-impact future. since 2024 all our new restaurants have been fitted with fully electric kitchens, and our aim is to make sustainability part of how every restaurant is designed, built and operated...

our impact journey

the most visible part of our operations is our restaurants  

we’re on a journey to lower their impact, sourcing 100% renewable electricity since 2021, and increasing their energy efficiency by recycling the heat produced by aircon units to heat the water we use 

we only use FSC timber, and we’re progressively installing heat pumps and Clearworld wireless control systems to improve efficiency even more. we've now installed over 120 new H20iq water saving systems in our sites, reducing their water consumption by up to 20% 

in fact, one of our newest sites that’s been kitted out with these new innovative systems has been awarded SKA Gold accreditation for environmental best practice, which is the highest environmental rating for commercial fit outs 

the next step is to take the learnings from this win and make it the standard for all our new restaurants in the future, while making it a priority when we look to refurbish sites that have been open for a longer period of time 

one of the most radical steps on our impact journey has been our electric woks. this was a real team effort, with our food development and kitchen teams working together to turn a new concept into something that works perfectly in our open kitchens 

more electric woks mean we can keep on reducing our gas use, and in the future, we want to leave gas behind completely 

that is great progress. but some ideas can come from more unexpected angles. like using recycled chopsticks as part of new benches, something we’re trialling in selected restaurants now 

from furniture to energy, we’ve come a long way on this journey. but there’s still plenty to do, and every day we’re working to take further steps forward

making progress with packaging 

food matters. and so does the way it reaches you 

when we create packaging, we have to balance a lot. keeping your food hot, fresh and protected. making sure it looks and tastes as good as it does in our restaurants. and doing all we can to reduce its impact along the way 

over the years we’ve made a number of changes to reduce our packaging’s impact. we moved from black plastic to grey, helping recycling facilities detect and sort our bowls more easily. we also updated our bowls from virgin plastic to ones made with 80% recycled plastic, which saved up to an estimated 330 tonnes of virgin plastic the year it launched, compared with our previous packaging 

our plastic bowls make up the majority of the packaging we use, and they are designed to be fully recyclable. and today, they can be recycled through your standard dry mixed recycling bins across England, Scotland and Wales (once they’ve been properly washed, of course) 

before 2025 when kerbside plastic recycling became widely available across the UK, we asked guests to wash their bowls and bring them back to our restaurants, so we could recycle them. and it was worth doing – guests who brought bowls back were offered a side on us when they next dined in. we called this our bowl bank, and it was a part of our commitment to reducing our impact 

we’re still working to make our packaging better, and we’re by no means finished  

occasionally, with a few specific menu items, we’ve introduced a small number of card packaging formats. we went for these because they are the most suitable way to protect our food, preserve quality and support how our dishes are eaten  

some of these formats do include a plastic lining, which means they are not currently widely recyclable. we know there’s more to do here, and we’re always reviewing these choices as better materials and recycling options become available 

this space keeps changing. so, we’ll keep reviewing, keep learning and keep making better choices where we can 

we're always working to find ways to reduce waste and increase recycling. every time we do this, we save natural resources. It’s a small act that has a big impact.

tackling food waste 

the less we create, the lower our impact 

when it comes to food waste we have two aims: minimising the amount we produce, and recycling as much as possible in the lowest-impact way possible 

monitoring and reducing food waste is a priority. we have worked with the Sustainable Restaurant Association to measure the impact of food waste, and we regularly audit our plate waste  

the insights we gain from doing this help us to create initiatives for tackling it, like developing dishes that help to lower the amount of waste, phasing out use-by dates on low-risk items, and implementing stock management systems to improve order control 

another great step has been reducing our use of cooking oil. we introduced the testo system to ensure we don’t change oil more often than we need to, and now we use over 10% less than in 2022 

what we do use is then fed into a recycling scheme to create biodiesel, in partnership with oil recycler Olleco 

our next aim is to introduce overall food waste targets to help all our restaurants achieve even better results 

…we're always working to find ways to reduce waste and increase recycling. every time we do this, we save natural resources. It’s a small act that has a big impact.

understanding our emissions 

we’re responsible for measuring the size of our carbon impacts. these are called scope 1, 2 and 3 – the three different categories of carbon emissions 

we work with our carbon accounting partner Normative to calculate our complete carbon ‘inventory’ - meaning our full scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions 

scopes 1 and 2 cover the impacts we make ourselves directly, mainly through the energy we use in our restaurants 

scope 3 is indirect carbon emissions. that’s everything else that goes into doing what we do, including emissions produced when growing and farming the food that we serve – our largest single area – to suppliers delivering ingredients, to how our people get to work  

like other companies, we don’t have direct control over our scope 3 emissions, but it is our responsibility to address them. reducing these involves collaborating with suppliers to reduce their emissions, sourcing lower impact ingredients wherever possible, and working with others in our industry to address big, system-level challenges 

reducing our emissions is a journey our whole business is in on together, from restaurants, to hq, to our central production unit and supply chain 

currently 40% of our scope 3 emissions come from suppliers who are taking action towards net zero, and we aim to grow this to 60% by 2030  

Our sustainability journey

we're on a journey to learn more and do better, for both people and planet