Sustainability Pledge
This page is an effort to explain my purpose and goals for operating a sustainable business. We are utilizing small local farms that grow without pesticides and fertilizers. We are minimizing our waste through recycling and composting, we are decreasing our energy usage across the board, and we are working to become carbon free in order to protect our resources.
Truthfully, the green thing was an evolution. As my style of cooking evolved, I noticed a driving passion to use local ingredients developing. The more I became involved in the world of local food the more I realized the benefits it provided: incredibly superior flavor, more nutritious foods, community support, the rebuilding of relationships with food growers, the subsistence of local farms and the impact that has on the future of my children and grandchildren. A natural byproduct of buying local is the change in mentality and habits in order to protect the environment. Our existence is dependent on the ability to grow food; buying local teaches you to look for people who farm in a manner that improves the soil. They farm for the future. When you realize the importance of the whole environment in growing your food, you start to pay attention to all of the other factors that affect it.
This philosophy began to influence all of my decisions; it became infectious. I not only cared about which farm I used and their growing techniques, I cared about the toxicity of the paraffin in my candles. I cared about the waste my one little restaurant produced being open only five nights a week. I cared about the lights, the paper, and the cleaning products. My eyes were opened to the connections between the growing of the food and everything else that went into serving it to my guests. Food is a wonderful representation of the state of the earth it is grown in. When the earth suffers, food production suffers, and when the earth is healthy, food production flourishes. It takes the nutrients from the air, soil and water and turns it into nutrients for us. We in turn use those nutrients and return them to the earth.
In 2007 I decided that my views about using sustainable food should be reflected throughout my business. We are, after all, a chef-driven restaurant. I started looking at what I could change within the restaurant to become more environmentally friendly. I found the GRA (Green Restaurant Association) and initiated the steps to become certified ‘green’, with the hope of putting my restaurant on a path to having the lightest possible footprint.
As passionate as I am about this subject, I am also realistic in my goals. I don’t believe that we can all change on a dime. I do believe in making a commitment and doing as much as you can, when you can.
There are lots of amazing green initiatives out there, there are lots of people saying they are green when they are not (known as ‘green washing’), and there is a lot of preaching. We don’t pay attention to any of that. I chose to get tāyst certified as a green restaurant because I wanted to make sure the question marks were removed from the equation. I don’t go table to table lecturing everyone, but I do hope that my actions can show people that it is possible.
It can be done.
