http:/www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-01-19/green-more-than-a-buzzword-for-san-diegos-restaurant-industry

This article discusses how it is true that due to the economy people are indeed going out to eat much less because of a decrease in personal disposable income. What I found fascinating was that this article says that more than half of the people who are stil going out to dine (62%) are more likely to go to places that they know are "green." These restaurants are also focusing more on not only purchasing locally grown food, but also putting more effort towards performing more economically friendly practices such as recycling, using eco-friendly cleaning products, and bio-degradable to-go containers. Dennis Stein, co-founder of Sea Rocket Bistro, even goes as far as to try to only hire staff who live in close proximity to the restaurant in order to cut down on gas usage, which also helps to support the local community, and he keeps an electric motorcycle for use of any errands that may need to be done. Stein is also involved int he local community by supporting such groups as Food Not Lawns, which encourages people to plant gardens instead of lawns around their houses and he also donates all of his restaurants' biodegradable food waste to schools for use in their gardens.

This article also talks about the Green Restaurant Association, which is a non-profit organization that helps restaurants and all other brances of the food industry to become more environmentally sustainable. It works on a point-based system where restaurants are able to achieve 3 levels of certification. It helps to show which restaurants are actually "green" since there is no set standards currently which qualify a restaurant to be "green." It also shows restaurants how far they really can go with the "green" trend such as outfitting restaurants with "low-flow water systems, low-volatage lights, motion sensors, timing devices, compressors that reduce refrigeration expenses, reclaimed paper products and plenty of recycling bins." All of these step which owner may not realize they can take to help the environment while also being able to cut so many costs.

I also learned that LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which I remember someone had asked about because he/she had seen it in another article. An LEED certification must be obtained through the U.S. Green Building Council, but this article did not state what it actually took to achieve the different levels of this certification. Though it does say that Claire's restaurant is LEED platinum certified (the highest level) and that the things that make it "green" include "a dining room furnished with all re-purposed materials, recycled denim as insulation, a 90 percent edible garden, solar panels that provide 50 percent of the restaurant's electricity, and a pervious parking lot, meaning water drains into it versus running into the streets..."