BM Caterers and law firm Norton Rose Fulbright have won an award for their collaboration on phasing out single-use food packaging and coffee cups at the firm’s on-site restaurant.
Norton Rose Fulbright’s London office was recognised at the Team London Bridge ‘A Great Place to Work’ Awards 2025 for its work on circular economy and waste, phasing out single-use plastic in the restaurant through reusable CauliBox food and drink containers. To date, this has resulted in an estimated 23,000 litres of waste and an estimated 5,500kg of CO2 saved.
BM Caterers and Norton Rose Fulbright were amongst 13 businesses that demonstrated what Team London Bridge described as “outstanding leadership and achievement” in sustainability initiatives.
Around 150 members of the local business community gathered at The View From The Shard earlier this year to recognise businesses, service providers and individuals whose achievements make London Bridge ‘a great place to work’, celebrating projects, milestones, commitments and personal successes in sustainability, social impact and safety.
Team London Bridge is the Business Improvement District (BID) around London Bridge, including Tower Bridge, Guy’s Hospital and King’s College London, and encompasses more than 400 businesses.
BM Caterers started trialling CauliBox in August 2024 at Norton Rose Fulbright’s London office to reduce food and drink packaging waste, which saw disposable cups and hot food takeaway containers replaced with CauliBox reusables.
Since then, the site has seen more than 36,700 Cauli cups and containers ‘borrowed’ as part of the scheme, an average of more than 300 reusable cups and containers used each day. The site has also recently introduced a reward scheme, ‘CauliCoins’, which rewards the use of the reusable cups and containers by offering free items such as cakes, coffees and main courses based on the number of CauliCoins collected through borrowing and returning Cauli containers.
Customers can request a CauliBox or cup when ordering their food, which includes a £1 deposit, which is automatically refunded when they return the containers at an AI-powered, self-service onsite collection kiosk for them to be washed onsite and reused.
CauliBox containers are estimated to save 9.75 litres of water, reduce 237.5g of carbon dioxide emissions per use and have 92% lower CO2 emissions than a comparable compostable clamshell container. When a CauliBox container is no longer reusable, Cauli will collect and recycle them.
Angus Brydon, MD at BM Caterers, said: “This award reflects what’s possible when we work collaboratively with our clients to support the development of a more sustainable workplace.
“Phasing out single-use packaging at Norton Rose Fulbright wasn’t just about cutting waste, but more to help us encourage a behaviour shift amongst guests in our restaurant. We’re delighted to play our part in Norton Rose Fulbright achieving this award and, more importantly, with the change we’ve been able to create within the business.”
