Supplement 2: Sustainability

“Sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

—UN General Assembly, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• Introduction to Sustainable Restaurant Management
• Sustainable Restaurant Theory and Practices
• Sustainable Restaurant Development Terminology
• The Six-Stage Blueprint for Sustainable Restaurants
• Restaurant Waste Management
• Restaurant Water Management
• Restaurant Energy Management

Introduction to Sustainable Restaurant Management

In recent years, with the emergence of the consumer behavior perspective of Gen Zers and with the COVID-19 global pandemic and its economic disruption, sustainable hospitality has emerged as a critical factor when developing food-based businesses.

Have you ever thought about how the restaurant industry and its products, service, and supply chain systems are changing and will operate in the future? Do you take time to think about the role that food currently plays in our lives and how it impacts the environment?

The reason we are asking these questions is because this is exactly what sustainable restaurant management is. Sustainability in restaurants can be defined as ensuring that the same experiences, companies, and products that human beings enjoy and have access to today can be ensured for future generations.

Sustainable restaurant management and operations are complex and are intertwined with interactions with consumer behavior and various additional systems within our ecosystems. The term ecosystem is defined as the community of living and nonliving organisms in an environment.

As we continue to explore how sustainable systems impact restaurants and food service, the triple bottom line is a key concept that connects the dots to how we think about introducing and maintaining sustainability-based practices. The triple bottom line has three pillars: economics, environment, and society, which refers to the circumstances in which people are impacted by these systems. Each of these pillars is important to consider and leads to why sustainable restaurants are so complex.

Sustainable Restaurant Theory and Practices

The stakeholder theory expresses how all members of an ecosystem interface and impact other components within its environment. This theory is important to consider when designing pop-up restaurants because of the numerous stakeholders who are involved when planning, developing, and executing services for customers. Each of these circumstances has intended and unintended consequences in regard to the business’s triple bottom line. Pop-up restaurants need to consider how the following various key players interact and how they impact businesses.

Economics. Is expressed as the overall finances of the business, job development, and the financial well-being of local, regional, and national communities. It also is critical to ensure that business in general is designed, planned, and positioned to be successful long term, which will increase the overall economic viability of the geographical destination.

Social. Local residents, employees, neighborhoods, investors, supply chain systems, manufacturing, owners, operators, and customers.

Environment. Nature, decreasing climate change, flora, fauna, and ecosystems. Pop-up restaurants, in order to be sustainable, must consider how their overall business model, the equipment they use, and their service model impact the environment. Each of the elements represented in the environment is also considered its biodiversity.

Collaboration and participation. The methodology used when establishing sustainable systems within pop-up restaurants, bringing together different stakeholders to establish and execute shared interests and goals. Opportunities emerge when working with members, and this can also enhance communities, stakeholders, and social entrepreneurship. Philadelphia, due to various social and economic circumstances in recent years, has produced several sustainable restaurants and food concepts that are positively impacting its communities. Two of these businesses that we will examine are Honeysuckle Provisions and Down North Pizza.

Honeysuckle Provisions is a community-based business system that embraces how restaurants demonstrate collaboration and participation. Honeysuckle Provision, created and designed by Chefs Omar and Cybille St. Aude-Tate, is a community-focused grocery store and café. Based in the West Philadelphia community, which is considered a food desert, this market provides a space for chefs to introduce healthy dining options, grocery stores, and collaborative spaces to impact positively the quality of life for community members. An additional component of Honeysuckle Provisions is working with urban farmers, which produces jobs and food for these community-based businesses and partnerships.

A great example of how restaurants can approach and collaborate with communities from a job-creation perspective is Down North Pizza. Down North Pizza, located in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood in Philadelphia, is a pop-up restaurant with the mission to reduce recidivism rates in the community. As a mission-led for-profit business, Down North Pizza exclusively employs formerly incarcerated men and women, providing career training and preparing them for employment in the restaurant industry. Support with housing, legal representation, transportation, and additional services better ensure the short- and long-term success of their employees and the overall community.

We would think that the restaurant industry would embrace and encourage, in theory, sustainable practices. As we are learning, sustainability is not that easy, and these systems in many cases require investments that restaurants normally will see not immediately but in the future. The three major categories that impact the sustainability of restaurants are waste, energy, and water management. Before we explore each of these systems, let’s take a look at the psychology and stages of sustainable restaurant development.

Sustainable Restaurant Development Terminology

Trade-offs: a situational decision that involves losing or diminishing an aspect for returns or gains.

Scenarios: strategic links between planning, forecasting, and execution.

Prisoner’s Dilemma: circumstances in which two rational stakeholders in an ecosystem do or may not cooperate when it is in both of their best interest to do so.

Tragedy of Commons: situations in which members of an ecosystem process and make decisions independently according to their own self-interest.

Cradle-to-Cradle: business production systems that are efficient and decrease waste.

Externalities: side effects and consequences of industrial activities that impact communities.

Each of these definitions is key to how restaurants think through and make decisions as to how sustainable systems will impact their business along with their strategic planning. It is important to consider the return on investment as to how sustainable-based systems are planned in restaurants.

Sustainable Restaurant Six-Stage Blueprint

For restaurants when planning sustainable practices and systems using the six-stage blueprint is a good practice for operations. These stages are:

1. Pre-compliance
2. Compliance
3. Compliance Planning
4. Integrated Strategy
5. Strategic Purpose
6. Assessment & Valuation

The six-stage blueprint for restaurants creates and provides an economic model that drives the growth and success of the business.

Restaurant Waste Management

Restaurant waste has various environmental- and health-based impacts on communities. Waste contributes to increased greenhouse gasses; attracts pests, including vermin; and produces toxic substances. Waste can be formally defined as materials in which the holder intends or is required to discard the products.

Food waste, overall product packaging, and designing systems to positively impact the environment are the largest areas that restaurant operators must be concerned with.

Strategies to decrease restaurant waste include the following:

• Creating systems to decrease the overall transportation of products needed
• Designing menus that decrease the packaging of prefabricated foodstuffs and the delivery of products to the consumer
• Reducing the use of commercial chemicals, replacing them with environmentally friendly products
• Using local food and beverage products
• Implementing seasonal menu programs and collaborating with local farmers and food producers

When developing an overall sustainable waste management plan, the leadership must decide the approaches the restaurant desires to take. The types of products being used and the movement of products in relation to the economic goals of the restaurant are key factors in how waste management occurs.

Restaurant Water Management

Water management is defined by how water is supplied and processed. In restaurants, there are various opportunities to influence and decrease water usage and management and positively enhance the environment.

Water footprints can be defined into three categories: green, blue, and gray. Green water footprints are defined as water sources that are found underground. Blue water footprints are sourced through rain and other bodies of water. Gray water footprints have been exposed to chemicals at some point during their lifecycle.

For restaurants, finding opportunities to decrease the amount of gray water and not using water for the thawing of food items are sustainable strategies. Additional water management systems include the following:

• Understanding overall water usage for a business
• Defining and decreasing the cost of water
• Conserving and establishing a water management strategy
• Taking a holistic approach to planning the overall use and execution of water at restaurants

Restaurant Energy Management

The two largest areas in restaurants that consume energy are kitchen equipment and the heating and cooling of spaces. The climate in which a restaurant is located will influence how energy usage is needed. Degree days are used to measure the amount of cooling (cooling degree days, or CDD) and heating (heating degree days, or HDD) necessities at a restaurant. When the temperature is above sixty-seven degrees, it is assumed that most restaurant operators need to use their HVAC units to cool their businesses, and when the temperature is under sixty-three degrees, most restaurant operators need to heat the business.

This is all subjective based on the temperature outside and the overall environment itself. Some additional sustainable options include solar wind, hydro, ocean, geothermal, and biomass.

Sustainable restaurant management is complexly integrated, but with precise planning and integration into the business plan, it can assist operators with being more profitable and can attract customers and sales, which can be part of the overall sales and marketing strategy.

Finally, how restaurants approach sustainability will be determined based on several factors, such as business models, geographical locations, and capital available for investment.

KEY TERMS

• Triple bottom line
• Climate change
• Biodiversity
• Ecosystems
• System dynamic
• Cascading effects
• Trade offs
• Return on investment
• Forecasting
• Indicators
• Prisoner’s dilemma
• Tragedy of commons
• Cradle-to-cradle
• Collaboration & participation

REVIEW Questions

1. What are the three components of the triple bottom line?
2. Why is it important to embrace collaboration and participation when developing sustainable systems for restaurants?
3. What are the final two stages when designing sustainable restaurant blueprints?
4. Why is it important for restaurants to create strategies to decrease waste?
5. What are the three water footprint categories?
6. Do customers have influence to assist restaurant operators in regard to planning energy management?