May 16 2008

And the chef's special tonight is: food with integrity

Restaurants are going green. The National Restaurant Association's annual convention  gets underway Saturday in Chicago and the agenda is big on green, with "education" sessions like "Food with Integrity: Creating a Sustainable Food Supply," "5 Things Operators Must Know About Energy Efficiency," and "Marketing to Conserving Customers: A Guide to Operating Green with a Triple Bottom Line."

The NRA aims to encourage owners of the nation's 945,000 restaurants to adopt environmentally friendly business-wise practices to save energy and water and reduce utility costs, satisfy consumer demand, and reduce waste.

A USA Today story on Friday reports that former media tycoon Ted Turner is taking his Ted's Montana Grills casual dining restaurants down the green road, adding things like straws made from biodegradable paper, menus printed on 100 percent recycled paper, and cups made from cornstarch.

"Imagine the implications for global warming if we get the whole restaurant industry to go green," Turner said.

Here's some useful industry information from PG&E's Food Service Technology Center, cited in the USA Today story: Restaurants are the retail world's largest energy user. They use almost five times more energy per square foot than any other type of commercial building. Nearly 80 percent of the $10 billion that the commercial food service spends annually for its energy use is lost in inefficient food cooking, holding and storage. The average restaurant annually consumes roughly 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, 20,000 therms of natural gas and 800,000 gallons of water. Using EPA carbon equivalents, that amounts to 490 tons of carbon dioxide produced per year per restaurant.

Here in the Bay Area, you can find "green" restaurants and cafés certified in nine counties by the Bay Area Green Business Program. There's even a green-certified saloon in San Francisco - the Elixir - which specializes in organic cocktails.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson | Comments (0) digg delicioussend to a friendprint entry

 

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Efficiency , Energy , Environment , Events , Sustainable

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  • This is being rather generous to Lutz. 1. The "Volt", in no small part, will be targeted as a product to people who care about energy and environmental issues. These people don't embrace Lutz' antideluvian concepts of rejecting science. How responsible is it for a GM executive to be rejecting the science? 2. As well, Lutz didn't exactly sound too enthusiastic about the Volt itself. 3. And, GM public communications has 'defended' Lutz in rather absurd ways. -A Siegel
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  • This article is right on - small businesses have a huge role to play in sustainability. Not only do they add up in aggregate, but many small businesses operate in industries that can have a significant environmental impact depending on the exact practices, like dry cleaners, auto repair shops, etc. Green is also starting to affect the bottom line more and more, customers are increasingly voting with their feet for more sustainable businesses as can be seen from the growth of sites like http://www.ecovian.com. This is also a huge opportunity for small businesses to leapfrog their bigger brothers by being more agile in adopting these measures. -Emily
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  • Great entry, Katie. Love the level of detail you managed to get in there! Probably won't be able to compete with coal and oil any time the next decade, but definitely a great technology to look into! Keep it up :) -Rune (Norway)
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