GRA Releases Latest Green Restaurant List

The nonprofit, Boston-based Green Restaurant Association (GRA) just released its latest list of Certified Green Restaurants. Based on my count, there are a dozen that are part of lodging establishments in the United States. To see the entire list, click here. GRA has been featured in Green Lodging News and runs one of the oldest green certification organizations in the world. It was founded in 1990. Some of the prominent companies that have Certified Green Restaurants include Panera Bread, Microsoft, Wyndham Worldwide Corp., the InterContinental Hotels Group, and Hyatt Corp. Certified Green Restaurants have met the rigorous standards set forth by the GRA. They must be Styrofoam-free, implement a full scale recycling program, conduct annual education, and receive a minimum of 100 points on the GRA’s ratings scale.

To be certified, restaurants must score a minimum of 10 points each in the following environmental categories: Energy, Sustainable Food, Water Efficiency, Waste Reduction & Recycling, Disposables, and Chemicals & Pollution Reduction. To access the certification standards, click here. The Certified Green Restaurants program is tiered, meaning that restaurants can achieve two, three or four stars. A strength of the certification program is its requirement that restaurants continuously improve. As mentioned, to reach certification, a restaurant must meet a minimum of 100 points. By end of year two, each Certified Green Restaurant must score 110 points. Each year thereafter, it must meet the standard of 10 points higher. Starting in year nine, it must meet the standard of five points higher.

In addition to its basic restaurant certification, GRA offers a Sustainabuild certification for new builds and renovations, and an Events certification for the foodservice portion of an event.

With more than 500,000 restaurants in the United States, the number represented in GRA are just a tiny drop in a very large bucket. GRA certainly deserves an "A" for effort but it has a long way to go in helping the restaurant industry reduce its environmental impact.