The Sustainable Restaurant Corps

The Sustainable Restaurant Corps (SRC) is a non-profit that coaches restaurants in New York City to reduce their impact on the environment. We work with them to cut their energy and water usage, eliminate waste, improve recycling and composting, and make more sustainable food purchasing decisions. SRC also helps create a better work environment by encouraging the use of less toxic chemicals and automatic dilution systems.

Because most restaurants are small businesses with a failure rate of 60% or greater, they often don't focus on environmental concerns. But restaurants use five times more energy per square foot than other commercial real estate. They use over 300,000 gallons of water per year. New York City restaurants dump over 120 tons of food waste in landfills every day. But the food restaurants purchase has the greatest social and environmental impact. Starting in the field where petrochemicals and irrigation coax the plants to grow, to the farm workers that tend and pick the crops; the processing and transportation needed to get the food to market, and the local distribution networks that fan across the city, all before the produce reaches the kitchen. Only then can the restaurant workers prep and deliver it to your table. When restaurants make better choices about where their food comes from and how it's produced the entire system will feel the impact.

We are also developing the Susty rating system for restaurants. This rating will reward the restaurants that are leading the way in sustainability while encouraging those on the path to reach higher. We are working with Green Seal to create a premiurace ratification specific to New York City. Our goal to make this rating widely available where ever people go for advice about where to eat.