As you may be aware, Eco-friendliness is all the rage at the moment, companies are trying to spearhead social initiatives across board in order to stay in good books of the government, employees, investors and other stakeholders.
CSR has become the talking point for most companies and several companies themselves want to exude a positive image and retain their exclusivity when it comes to social initiatives.
However, between all of this, the core point of practicing eco-friendliness is completely lost. Companies, businesses and individual businesses need not dedicate separate teams or conduct brainstorm sessions to strategize how to conform to the new “save the planet” rhetoric.
When it comes to hospitality – including hotels and restaurants, there are a several practices that can be incorporated in order to ensure that you retain an image of eco-friendliness as well as actually ensure that your firm does not harm any ecological balance.
If you’re interested in additional eco-friendly topics, we recommend that you visit this page for additional information on eco-friendly cleaning tips.
Let’s get cracking.
Furniture
Bet you didn’t expect that, I don’t blame you. Furniture is the last thing that comes to mind when it comes to eco-friendly compliance.
That being said, it is also the first thing that you should be looking at if you want a clean slate for an ecological footprint.
Let me explain. Restaurants popularly use either Steel/metal chairs or they use plastic chairs. Wooden and carved chairs are notorious for being reserved exclusively for the higher end restaurant chains and only the premium restaurants can afford something of this sort.
There are a couple of issues with this status quo. For one, it isn’t true. Wooden chairs are undoubtedly more expensive than plastic or metal chairs but they also have a lifespan that is twice as long.
Taking that into consideration means that if the prices are indeed slightly lower, wooden furniture does indeed make a lot more economic sense. And yes, there are several legacy furniture manufacturers that sell them at an extraordinarily higher price with ridiculous margins, but if you look hard enough, and the right places, you’ll be able to find them easily.
A few companies that deliver globally, like Furnitureroots.com make great wooden furniture for restaurants that is both economical as well as eco-friendly.
Adding to the fact that plastic chairs are non-bio degradable and is also one of the worst pollutants in the world and also the fact that manufacturing metal chairs involves complicated manufacturing adds credence to the fact that purchasing wooden furniture is the sweetest deal out there if you’re looking for eco-friendly as well as cost effective furniture.
Paint
Most of us have also observed the levels of precautions taken while painting your house, building or any other establishments. Workers always have a mask on along with protective coating.
The reason for that is because standard paint along with the layers applied prior to the application of the paint itself is quite harmful for humans as well as the planet, which is why companies have increasingly come out with paints that are eco-friendly.
Standard paints have high level of volatile organic compounds which are best not used for painting your restaurant.
Instead using any of the eco-friendly options would add a whole lot more in terms of eco-compliance. We have previously covered eco-friendly painting ideas that you can consider taking up.
Plants
Again, we know what you’re thinking, such a cliché, right?
But we must strongly recommend this, not just because of the eco-friendly nature but also because using this is actually improves the overall décor and vibe of your restaurant/café.
Numerous cafes across India have succeeded primarily because of they embraced the open-air design philosophy which urban dwellers particularly clamour for.
Organic Wastage
While this is much more mainstream compared to the other 2 recommendations above, all restaurants should be practicing this.
All restaurants produce a ton of organic waste, segregating them from bio degradable and non-biodegradable and then using the bio waste as fodder to the plants used for décor is a great idea that should be put into practice.
If even 10% of the restaurants started putting these actionables into practice, it would have a significant impact on the organic waste generation from the restaurant industry. Source:The Guardian
We have deliberately excluded the standard recommendations – avoid plastic cups, use only eco-friendly bags for take-outs, avoid wastage of food by providing low portion size options as we find the above listed options to be much more impactful.
