What exactly do we mean by “green?”

Here are just a few of the main things we look at when certifying GDA restaurant:

What’s coming into the restaurant? Are they:

•  leaving behind a low-impact trail of trash and pollution?
  • Ex: Polystyrene (Styrofoam) production is hard on the Earth,the air, and the people who live and work  near the plants.
• buying ingredients and products that are local, grown with organic principles?
• buying compostable and recyclable to-go products?

What’s happening inside the restaurant? Are they:

• conserving water, energy, and other resources?
• considering social sustainability?
  • Ex: buying Fair Trade coffee or tea, or participating in a community give-back program

And what’s happening when all of those resources leave the restaurant? Are they:

• diverting re-usable Missouri resources from landfills?
  • Ex: Aluminum cans can be recycled and back on the shelf in just 30 days, and the entire process happens here in the Gateway region!
  • Ex. Did you know that when organics – any foods, plants, or paper products – get dumped in landfills, they produce 17% of our nation’s methane emissions? When organics are recycled via composting, however, the carbon and nutrients break down properly and are fed back into the soil, completing the “cycle of life” loop and keeping methane out of our atmosphere.

For a near-complete list of things we look at when certifying restaurants, take our practice audit here.

Unfortunately, many of the restaurants in our region are not recycling or working on reducing their environmental impact – the only way you can be sure a restaurant is trying to become more sustainable is if the GDA logo is on their door.