Can a hotel use the government's hotel stay factor for its own footprint?

No. The DESNZ hotel stay factor is an average per room night for guests reporting their business travel. Your own footprint should come from your actual gas, electricity, refrigerant and waste data. You can then divide it by occupied room nights to give corporate guests a figure for your hotel.

Whose emissions are a tenanted pub's?

Under the operational control approach most businesses use, the tenant runs the pub and reports its energy as Scope 1 and 2. For the pub company that owns it, a tenanted or leased pub falls in Scope 3 category 13 (downstream leased assets), which a PPN 006 plan does not require. Managed pubs you run yourself are your Scope 1 and 2.

Is the CO2 in our beer gas a greenhouse gas emission?

Carbon dioxide released at the bar is an emission in principle, but it is very small next to energy and refrigerants, and the gas is often a by-product captured from other industries. Most hospitality businesses note it as excluded on materiality grounds rather than calculating it.

Does food waste really make a difference?

It is usually small in tonnes of CO2e compared with energy, but it is visible, buyers ask about it and cutting it saves money. In England, workplaces must already separate food waste for collection under Simpler Recycling, so you should have the collection records to report it.

Carbon reporting for hotels, restaurants and pubs

Hotels, restaurants, pubs and caterers need a PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan to bid for UK government contracts above £5 million a year, and corporate customers and event bookers increasingly ask for carbon figures too. Kitchen and heating gas, electricity and refrigerant leaks from cold rooms and cellar cooling are usually most of the footprint, followed by waste and staff travel.

Updated 3 October 2026 by the Carbon Recycling team. Figures use the official UK government conversion factors and are checked against the current gov.uk guidance.

Hospitality businesses are asked about carbon in two different ways. Contract caterers and venues bidding for public sector work get the formal Carbon Reduction Plan requirement. Hotels, venues and restaurants serving corporate customers get questions from travel and events buyers who need the emissions of their stays and events for their own reports. The same footprint answers both.

Who asks for it

Public sector catering and venue contracts above £5 million a year, under PPN 006, and NHS catering contracts under the NHS supplier rules.
Corporate travel and events buyers, who ask hotels and venues for a carbon figure per room night or per event so they can report their business travel more accurately than with an average.
Your own annual report, if your group is large enough for SECR.

Where hospitality emissions come from

Source	Scope	What to collect
Gas for kitchens, heating, hot water and pools	Scope 1	Gas bills in kWh, by site
LPG or oil, common at rural pubs and hotels	Scope 1	Delivery notes in litres or kilograms
Refrigerant leaks from cold rooms, cellar cooling, ice machines and air conditioning	Scope 1	Service records: gas type and kilograms topped up
Vans and minibuses you run	Scope 1	Fuel cards in litres
Electricity for kitchens, lighting, refrigeration, laundry and air conditioning	Scope 2	Bills in kWh
Deliveries you pay a carrier for, such as between a central kitchen and sites	Scope 3, category 4	Weight and distance, or the carrier's figures
Food waste, glass, cardboard and general waste	Scope 3, category 5	Waste contractor reports, by material and treatment
Managers travelling between sites, and hotel stays	Scope 3, category 6	Mileage claims and expenses
Staff getting to work, including late finishes and split shifts	Scope 3, category 7	A commuting survey, scaled to headcount

The food and drink you buy is often the largest part of a full hospitality footprint, but it is purchased goods (Scope 3, category 1), which a PPN 006 plan does not require. Report it if a buyer asks for it specifically.

Which government conversion factors apply

Use the DESNZ Fuels factors for gas, LPG and oil, UK electricity for your bills, Refrigerant & other for leaks (the factor depends on the gas, so get it from your service records), Waste disposal for food waste and recycling, and the Business travel and Passenger vehicles tabs for travel. The Water supply and Water treatment factors are optional but worth adding for hotels, where water use is high.

Boundary questions and common mistakes

Contract catering in a client's kitchen. If the client owns the kitchen and pays the energy bills, that energy is the client's. Your footprint is your own offices, vehicles and staff travel, and any sites where you hold the bills.
Tenanted, leased and franchised sites. Decide which sites you have operational control of, list them, and apply the rule the same way every year.
Refrigerant reported as zero. Commercial refrigeration leaks, and some common refrigerant gases have high warming potential. If your engineers topped any up, it belongs in Scope 1.
Seasonal sites. Use a full twelve months of bills so a closed winter or a busy summer does not distort the year.

Reductions buyers recognise

Induction hobs and electric kitchen equipment in place of gas, with a renewable tariff;
regular refrigeration maintenance, leak checks and lower-impact refrigerants;
cellar and cold room door seals, curtains and controls;
heating and ventilation controls tied to occupancy or room bookings;
measuring and cutting food waste, and sending what remains to anaerobic digestion.

How Carbon Recycling handles it

Add each hotel, restaurant or pub as a site and import a year of bills, refrigerant records and waste reports from a spreadsheet. Carbon Recycling applies the DESNZ factor to every line, including the right factor for each refrigerant gas and each waste material and treatment, and produces your PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plan and, if you need one, your SECR report. Site-level figures let you give a corporate customer the footprint of the hotel or venue they actually use.

Try your energy figures in the kWh to CO2e calculator, check whether your group needs SECR with the SECR checker, or download the free Carbon Reduction Plan template. See plans on the pricing page.