Green Kitchen Standards

The Green Kitchen Standard framework is flexible to align with areas caterers have control


Points are awarded to caterers based on actions taken to reduce energy, water and waste. Some suggestions of ways to score points are:

GKS Areas to Score Points

How we set the Green Kitchen Standard

The Green Kitchen Standard requirements have been set by our expert partners at the Carbon Trust, an independent mission-driven organisation who specialises in helping organisations contribute to and benefit from a more sustainable future. In developing the standard the Carbon Trust were are able to draw upon years of experience in both organisational sustainability, having been an expert partner of leading organisations around the world since 2001, and standardisation, having launched the Carbon Trust Standard in 2008 as the world’s leading independent certification of an organisation’s environmental impact.

We are proud of the way we set our standards. The Green Kitchen Standard has been years in the making, drawing on our expert technical advice and further improved by an extensive pilot stage where we tested the methodology in a number of working catering environments. The process ensures that the Green Kitchen Standard reflects best practice requirements in carbon, energy, water and waste, specifically tailored to caterers, whilst still being practical and achievable.

The Green Kitchen Standard has also been aligned with the Resource Efficiency section of DEFRA’s Balanced Scorecard for the benefit of public sector caterers.

Pupils in Food for Life schools eat around a third more fruit and vegetables than pupils in comparison schools, and significantly more fruit and vegetables at home.