How Smart Planner Classifies Eco-Friendly Food and Beverage Services

Choosing where to eat is an important part of any journey. But today, many travellers want their choices to reflect more than taste, price and location. They also want to understand whether the restaurants, cafés and other food and beverage businesses they visit are making meaningful efforts to reduce their environmental impact, support responsible sourcing and contribute positively to the destinations they operate in.

Smart Planner is helping make that information easier to understand.

What is Smart Planner?

Smart Planner is an AI-powered regenerative tourism platform designed to help travellers plan and experience more personalised and meaningful journeys while connecting them with local places, cultures and communities.

Across the platform, travellers can discover accommodation, food and beverage services, activities, attractions, transport services, local businesses and community initiatives. Smart Planner provides information that helps travellers compare these options and make more informed decisions when planning and experiencing their trips.

Sustainability is an important part of this experience.

Rather than simply describing a business as "green" or "sustainable", Smart Planner aims to provide travellers with a simple and consistent indication of the environmental practices they may expect from different tourism and hospitality businesses.

For this reason, eligible businesses and places listed across Smart Planner can receive an Eco-Friendly Classification and Badge.

The Smart Planner Eco-Friendly Badge

The Eco-Friendly Badge provides travellers with a simple visual indication of the level of eco-friendly practices identified for a particular business or place.

The classification uses a 1-to-5 scale, where:

The purpose of the classification is not to replace recognised environmental certifications. Instead, it provides Smart Planner users with an accessible way to understand and compare businesses using a consistent framework.

A Framework Designed Specifically for Food and Beverage Services

Different tourism businesses create different types of environmental impacts. The practices that matter most for a hotel, for example, are not necessarily the same practices that matter most for a restaurant.

For this reason, Smart Planner commissioned a report to develop a classification framework specifically for restaurants, cafes, wineries and so on.

The framework was designed for restaurants, cafés, bars, food courts, fast-food outlets, casual and fine-dining restaurants, takeaway businesses and other food-service venues. It follows a practical, evidence-based and, importantly, guest-observable approach.

This means the assessment considers information that travellers can reasonably identify through sources such as menus, business websites, recognised certification directories, sustainability information, signage, packaging, waste facilities and other visible practices.

The framework contains 12 potential assessment criteria, covering areas ranging from food sourcing and waste to energy, water, cleaning practices, transport and community contribution. However, six criteria are identified as particularly important to the environmental impact of food-service businesses.

For the first version of the Smart Planner platform, only these six core criteria are being used to determine the overall Eco-Friendly Classification for Food and Beverage Services.

This provides travellers with a simpler classification while keeping the assessment focused on the areas considered most material to food-service sustainability.

The Six Core Eco-Friendly Criteria

1. Verification and Transparency

The first criterion looks at how clearly a business communicates and supports its environmental practices.

Smart Planner distinguishes between general statements such as "we are sustainable" and more specific evidence showing what the business actually does.

Evidence may include sustainability information published by the venue, recognised environmental certifications, documented sourcing policies, sustainability targets, information about waste or packaging initiatives and other venue-specific evidence.

Transparency matters because environmental claims should be supported by meaningful information.

A recognised certification can therefore provide strong evidence, but certification does not automatically determine the Smart Planner classification. The framework specifically treats certification as evidence rather than an automatic overall rating.

2. Plant-Rich and Lower-Impact Menu

What a restaurant serves can be one of the most significant components of its environmental impact.

The classification therefore considers whether customers have meaningful access to vegetarian, vegan and plant-forward meals.

At the lower end of the scale, a venue may have few or no meaningful plant-based choices. As the classification increases, travellers should expect greater availability and prominence of plant-rich dishes.

A higher-performing venue might have a significant proportion of vegetarian or vegan main meals, while businesses demonstrating leading practices may make plant-rich choices a normal part of the menu rather than treating them as an exception.

The assessment is not intended to suggest that every restaurant must become vegetarian. Instead, it recognises businesses that provide meaningful lower-impact choices and make those choices easily accessible to customers.

3. Responsible Sourcing and Provenance

Where food comes from also matters.

This criterion assesses the information available about ingredient sourcing and provenance. Smart Planner looks for evidence such as named suppliers, locally or seasonally sourced ingredients, credible certifications, traceability information and clear sourcing policies.

A simple statement such as "we use local ingredients" provides less evidence than a menu or sustainability page identifying specific producers, suppliers or recognised sourcing standards.

Higher classifications therefore require stronger evidence that responsible sourcing is embedded across important ingredient categories rather than appearing as an isolated initiative.

This approach also helps travellers discover businesses that build stronger connections between food, local producers and the destination they are visiting.

4. Food-Waste Prevention and Surplus Recovery

Food waste is one of the most important environmental issues associated with food-service businesses.

Smart Planner therefore considers what a venue appears to be doing to prevent food from becoming waste in the first place and, where waste cannot be avoided, how it is managed.

Observable practices can include portion choices, smaller serving options, buffet systems designed to reduce overproduction, food-waste information and responsible management of surplus food.

More advanced practices can include measuring food waste, establishing reduction targets, donating edible surplus where appropriate and legal, and diverting organic waste to composting, animal feed or other recovery systems where suitable infrastructure exists.

The principle is straightforward: preventing waste is preferable to simply managing it after it has been created.

5. Reusables, Takeaway Packaging and Single-Use Plastics

Packaging and disposable products are another highly visible part of the hospitality experience.

The Smart Planner framework considers whether restaurants and cafés use reusable plates, cups and cutlery for dine-in customers, as well as how takeaway packaging, straws, napkins, utensils and condiments are provided.

Businesses may achieve stronger classifications by reducing unnecessary disposable items, avoiding problematic materials such as polystyrene, providing items such as cutlery only when required, and adopting reusable, recyclable, recovered-content or compostable packaging where appropriate systems exist.

At the highest levels, businesses may operate reuse or return systems and be able to demonstrate measurable reductions in packaging.

6. Waste Sorting, Recycling and Organics

Finally, the core classification considers what happens to waste that cannot be prevented.

Smart Planner looks for clearly identifiable waste-separation practices, including recycling facilities, appropriate signage and, where available, separate collection of organic waste.

Higher-performing businesses may also demonstrate practices such as used cooking oil recovery, composting and measurement of waste diversion.

Importantly, the framework recognises that waste infrastructure varies considerably between destinations.

A restaurant should not necessarily receive a poor assessment simply because commercial composting or a particular recycling service does not exist in its region. In these circumstances, the framework allows other practices - such as reduction, reuse, supplier take-back programmes, food donation or alternative recovery initiatives - to be considered.

Evidence Matters

One of the most important principles behind the Smart Planner classification is that an environmental claim should be supported by appropriate evidence.

The underlying framework establishes an evidence hierarchy ranging from independent verification to unsupported marketing claims.

Strong evidence can include independent certifications, audited information and third-party verified data. Business documentation such as current sustainability pages, supplier information, menus, policies and published targets can also provide meaningful evidence.

Direct guest observation - including packaging, menus, recycling facilities, signage and water service -can support the assessment of customer-facing practices.

By contrast, unsupported words such as "eco", "green", "ethical", "local" or "sustainable" are not considered sufficient evidence on their own. Under the framework, unsupported marketing claims limit how highly the relevant criterion can be scored.

This approach is important because Smart Planner wants the Eco-Friendly Badge to help travellers distinguish between specific, observable environmental practices and general environmental marketing.

Certification Helps, But It Doesn't Automatically Determine the Rating

Smart Planner recognises the important role played by established environmental and responsible-sourcing certification programmes.

Independent certification can significantly strengthen the evidence available when assessing a business. However, the existence of a certification or sustainability badge does not automatically result in a particular overall Smart Planner Eco-Friendly Classification.

The assessment considers the practices and evidence applicable to the specific venue.

This is particularly important for businesses operating multiple locations. A sustainability commitment made at brand or corporate level does not necessarily demonstrate that every individual restaurant or café implements exactly the same practices.

Where possible, Smart Planner therefore prioritises venue-specific evidence.

Similarly, visible practices may influence the assessment even when a business holds a recognised certification. For example, extensive use of unnecessary disposable products or a lack of meaningful plant-rich choices can still affect the relevant criteria.

Why Smart Planner Uses a Guest-Observable Approach

Smart Planner's classification is designed primarily to help travellers make informed decisions - not to operate as an environmental auditing or certification organisation.

There are many aspects of restaurant sustainability that a traveller cannot independently verify, including supplier invoices, exact energy consumption, kitchen equipment performance, waste weights, employment conditions or the complete environmental footprint of individual ingredients.

The framework acknowledges these limitations.

For this reason, Smart Planner uses a conservative approach based on the quality of information available.

The Eco-Friendly Classification should therefore be understood as a traveller-oriented assessment of identifiable and supported eco-friendly practices, rather than a complete environmental audit or life-cycle assessment of the business.

Helping Travellers Make More Informed Choices

Smart Planner does not expect travellers to choose a restaurant based solely on an environmental score.

Food quality, dietary requirements, accessibility, location, cultural experience, atmosphere, price and personal preferences all remain important parts of deciding where to eat.

The Eco-Friendly Classification simply adds another useful piece of information.

A traveller may choose between two cafés and decide to support the one using reusable serviceware and locally sourced ingredients. Another may deliberately look for restaurants offering strong plant-based choices. Someone else may want to support businesses reducing food waste or working closely with local producers.

By making this information more visible, Smart Planner aims to make responsible travel choices easier and more practical.

It also creates an opportunity to recognise hospitality operators that are already investing time, resources and creativity into improving their environmental performance.

The Framework Will Continue to Evolve

The complete Food and Beverage Services framework contains twelve criteria. In addition to the six core criteria currently used by Smart Planner, the broader framework considers sustainable seafood and other high-risk ingredients, energy and carbon, water and dishwashing efficiency, cleaning chemicals and indoor environment, low-impact access and logistics, and community, staff fairness and guest education.

Smart Planner has intentionally started with the six core criteria so that the first version of the classification remains focused, understandable and practical.

As the platform develops and more information becomes available from operators, certifications and other reliable sources, the methodology can continue to evolve.

Our objective is not simply to put a badge beside a business.

It is to make sustainability information more understandable, encourage transparency, recognise businesses making meaningful improvements and help travellers direct more of their spending towards tourism and hospitality experiences that align with their values.

Are You a Tourism or Hospitality Operator? Talk to us

Smart Planner understands that sustainability is a journey and that no classification system can perfectly represent every individual business.

Information can change. New initiatives may have been introduced. Certifications may have been achieved or renewed. A business may also have environmental practices that are not currently communicated publicly and therefore could not be considered during an initial assessment.

For this reason, operators who would like Smart Planner to review their Eco-Friendly Classification are encouraged to contact the Smart Planner team.

We welcome additional information and evidence that can help us maintain accurate, fair and up-to-date classifications.

By working together with travellers, tourism organisations and hospitality operators, Smart Planner aims to make environmental information more transparent - and make it easier for every trip to contribute positively to the places we visit.