You may be hearing a lot of buzz about your favorite restaurants going ‘green’ by having more locally-sourced, sustainable food. But how green are the rest of their practices? Did they choose sustainable furnishings, are their refrigerators energy efficient, do they compost? A non-profit called the Green Restaurant Association can help address all these issues, and is pushing the food service industry to truly go green.

One of the first things you can do to be a more environmentally-conscientious consumer, is to look up Certified Green Restaurants™ in your area. Check out the Green Restaurant Association’s searchable database and see which of your favorite restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries have already made the commitment, and which are still lagging behind.

For those restaurants that haven’t taken the plunge to become Certified, why not send them a little note of encouragement to go green? The GRA has printable suggestion cards on their website which you can slip in with the check or a sample email which you could modify and send to the manager of your favorite restaurant.

So what does it mean to be a Certified Green Restaurant™? You can think of it as somewhat similar to the process of earning LEED certification for green buildings. There are three types of Certifications – Existing Restaurants, New Builds, and Events. For each category, there are different point thresholds that must be met at a minimum to garner Certification. The businesses are given merits based on seven categories: water efficiency, waste reduction & recycling, sustainable furnishings & building materials, sustainable food, energy, disposables, and chemical & pollution reduction.

All Certified Green Restaurants™ must have full-scale recycling programs, be completely free of Styrofoam, and maintain an annual education program. In addition, they can gain certain numbers of points for practices under the categories listed above. For example, installing low flow faucet aerators in the kitchen sinks, dual flush toilets in the restrooms and reusing greywater for irrigation will all earn points in the water efficiency category.

A large goal of the GRA is to promote zero waste in the food service industry. As they point out, the average restaurant can produce 150,000 pounds of garbage per year. That includes organic waste, as well as recyclables. They suggest ways to divert waste from composting to making biodiesel from grease to finding vendors that will take back their own packaging to reuse.

The Green Restaurant Association also understands that restaurants may not have the time to sort out all of these green practices, even if they wish they did. So the GRA has implemented assessment and consulting programs to make it even easier and to see how sustainable practices can benefit the bottom line. Staff of the GRA will complete an environmental assessment to see where a restaurant is in relation to the Certification Standards, and consultants can suggest specific steps and solutions to gain more points. Consultants can help set up recycling programs, recommend green products, find distributors and even perform cost analyses.

For businesses in the food service industry, the GRA is a great resource to help find credible ways to be more environmentally responsible and the benefits are obvious. Not only are you making a difference for our planet, but improving the bottom line and creating a healthy and enjoyable environment for staff and customers.

Consumers are beginning to make smarter choices about dining out and research shows that people really do care what impact their favorite restaurants are having on the environment. So whether you’re thinking of opening your own restaurant, or just enjoy dining out, make sure that you choose the most environmentally responsible route and always dine green.