For St. Louis diners and restaurants looking to prioritize sustainability, the Green Dining Alliance, or GDA, is here to help. An arm of the nonprofit organization earthday365, the GDA has been helping promote sustainability in St. Louis for over a decade.
Certifying restaurants as “green” is one of the main activities of the program. The restaurants commit to several core concepts, such as banning Styrofoam, recycling, sourcing local and organic products and energy and water conservation. To maintain status, a member of the GDA visits and assesses each participating restaurant annually.
“We also look at innovation,” says Ben Daughtery, GDA’s program manager. “What are they doing to go above and beyond? Whether that’s having a rooftop garden or solar panels, social sustainability is something that we also look into. Looking at how the restaurant works with its employees and how it represents itself within the community it serves.”
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Given this broad definition of sustainability, Daugherty understands that becoming greener can be a challenge for chefs and owners.
“We’re a great resource for them to be able sit down and talk them through all of these different areas,” he says.
The GDA is active about reaching out to restaurants and encouraging them to participate in the program. While supply chain issues related to COVID-19 can pose challenges to implementing greener business practices, Daugherty emphasizes that embracing energy-efficient practices can actually save these businesses money.
Other forms of outreach include green dining districts – areas where at least 25 percent of the food businesses are GDA-certified, like The Grove, Maplewood’s Special Business District and The Delmar Loop. The nonprofit also relies on its earthday365 members – in return for incentives and discounts at GDA-certified restaurants, these ambassadors visit non-member restaurants, talk with staff and spread the word about the program.
Spreading awareness to diners has also been a key part of the program. People can download the GDA Finder app to easily locate green restaurants, and the program works with schools like Saint Louis University and Washington University to spread the word on college campuses. The nonprofit also sponsors events where guests buy a ticket to sample food from a variety of GDA restaurants.
While the restaurants have the task of embracing greener business practices, Daugherty believes diners have a responsibility, too.
“I think the diners and the food patrons also have a role here to support these restaurants,” he says. “If we keep supporting food businesses that don’t really make sustainability a priority, they’re probably not going to change.”
When it comes to being more environmentally conscious at home, Daugherty has several recommendations for the home cook. Preventing food waste can be easy if you go to the grocery store with a list and stick to it, as well as embracing plant-based meals and composting.
“If you don’t have your own compost system in your backyard, there are other ways you can go about it,” he says. “There’s apps like Shared Waste, where you can drop your food scraps off at other people’s properties that are collecting food waste.”
You can browse the more than 100 GDA-certified restaurants on the alliance's website.
Green Dining Alliance, greendiningalliance.org