Survey to Gauge NYC Restaurant Sustainability

New York restaurants produce enough food waste every day to fill more than a hundred subway cars, and they use five times more energy per square foot than any other type of business.
Survey to Gauge NYC Restaurant Sustainability
A chef puts pastries on display in a restaurant on the Lower East Side in New York City in this file photo. (Amal Chen/The Epoch Times)
Ivan Pentchoukov
7/16/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

New York restaurants produce enough food waste every day to fill more than a hundred subway cars, and they use five times more energy per square foot than any other type of business. With Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent proposal to begin composting restaurant food waste, sustainability is becoming a key issue for the industry.

Some of New York City’s 24,000 restaurants are already known for sustainable practices: using wind-powered electricity, buying organic and local ingredients, donating edible food and composting the rest, etc. But how much the rest of the industry is doing to move toward sustainability is unclear. 

A sustainability survey has now been sent to over 500 city restaurants. The survey was developed by the Sustainable Restaurant Corps (SRC) and aims to give the organization the data it needs to decide which services to provide to the city’s restaurants. 

“The sustainability survey will help us see what the restaurants in the city are already doing that is sustainable, and what they may not be doing, and how challenging it was for them,” said Christine Black, the founder and executive director of the SRC.

The survey asks restaurants a range of questions, including whether they are using aerators on their faucets, or if they have conducted an energy audit. Those that choose to complete the survey will be entered to win a comprehensive energy audit worth $1,500 from Conserva Resources, among other prizes.

The survey can be completed at sustynyc.org.

Ivan is the national editor of The Epoch Times. He has reported for The Epoch Times on a variety of topics since 2011.
twitter
facebook
Related Topics