Via my assistance with Upper Green Side, I’ve become acquainted with the Green Restaurant Association. In fact, one of Upper Green Side’s new projects is to encourage restaurants on the Upper East Side to become certified green.
The Massachusetts-based GRA works with restaurants to find ways they can become more sustainable. And they know their stuff! They reportedly worked with an organic, vegetarian and raw food restaurant in L.A. “‘They weren’t even cooking their food,” said Michael Oshman, [GRA] executive director… ‘How much energy could they be using?’” They came up with 16 improvements within an hour.
They have a number of guidelines consisting of various steps, in areas such as food sources (organic? local?), energy and water efficiency, and more. They require that restaurants complete four steps a year to be certified green. (One wonders if they may retain their certification if they run out of steps!)
And it’s a pretty cheap program for restaurants. They charge 0.1% or less of the restaurant’s gross revenue with a minimum of $700 and a maximum of $3000, and there are discounts for longer term contracts.
They’ve been endorsed by major environmental groups from NY State and beyond, and although there is only one New York restaurant currently listed in their Green Restaurant Guide (and what a coincidence, it’s right here on the Upper East Side), they’re starting to make inroads. Oshman reported in a comment at Treehugger that, this June, the Statue of Liberty food service and a chain of restaurants called Le Pain Quotidien, with 10 NYC locations, signed onto the Green Restaurant Association and will make four new environmental improvements per year, per location over the next five years. Hopefully with the help of groups like Upper Green Side, there will be more restaurants signing up soon.
You can help, too. They have suggestion cards you can leave with your bill at restaurants to let them know you care about sustainable dining. And it doesn’t matter where you live — the GRA is not limited to MA or NY, their full list of certified green locations includes establishments in MN, NC, TX, HI, and, mostly, CA.)
