To celebrate the launch of NYC's First Green Dining Destination™, the Green Restaurant Association, Madison Square Park Conservancy, and Flatiron NoMad Partnership held a celebratory launch event on September 16th in Madison Square Park. Representatives of the Certified Green Restaurants® in NYC's First Green Dining Destination™ cut the green ribbon on the official launch of the environmentally sustainable dining destination. Guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres from Certified Green Restaurants® in the area, including BLACKBARN, Shake Shack, and Scarpetta.
''This initiative demonstrates how the restaurant industry, one neighborhood at a time, can be a powerful force for sustainability. We're proving that when a community does come together with a shared commitment to change, we can create a model for others to follow," said James Metham, President of Flatiron NoMad Partnership, during his speech at the launch event. "Our organizations hope that the actions here inspire other neighborhoods and restaurants to join us in making dining more environmentally friendly, and we look forward to welcoming more Green Dining Destinations™ to NYC and beyond."
Having implemented 297 environmental steps to earn more than 1,500 GreenPoints™ (the GRA’s unit of measurement of a restaurant’s sustainability), NYC’s First Green Dining Destination™ is making quite the splash in improving the environmental impact of these restaurants. Collectively, these restaurants are saving 354,077 kWh of energy annually, the equivalent of removing 52.8 passenger vehicles off the road each year. Additionally, NYC’s First Green Dining Destination™ is saving 504,395 gallons of water every year, the equivalent of 46.3 backyard swimming pools worth of water. Perhaps the most impressive, these restaurants are diverting 969,465 pounds of waste from landfills per year through implementing recycling and composting programs, as well as additional waste reduction measures. That’s the same amount of weight as 5,356 average Americans combined.
Alyssa Schmid, Vice President of Communications at NYC Tourism + Conventions, is also hoping to inspire other restaurants and neighborhoods across NYC and beyond to improve the restaurant industry’s environmental impact."We're really hoping that this resonates across the five boroughs and that other neighborhoods take this on because it's so important to our visitors that are coming in from the U.S. and also from our international markets," she said.
These Certified Green Restaurants® can be found in the Flatiron NoMad Green Dining Destination™:
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