My organization is called The Sustainable Restaurant Corps and we are a start-up non-profit.  We'll be working with restaurants one-on-one to help them cut their energy and water waste, to reduce food waste, to divert more recyclables and compost from the landfill, and to use more sustainable, organic and local food.  Then we'll catalog what the restaurant has done and give them a rating.  Those ratings will then be available to the popular web sites people use to decide where to eat.

The program, as I have conceived it, is very comprehensive.  It addresses sustainability as a whole system that involves all aspects of the restaurant business-- including suppliers, contractors, and purveyors.   We want to provide a service any restaurant can use for no or low cost so they can put their money into making improvements.   We also take a long term approach by incorporating the aspirations of the restaurant into the plan.  Our coaches will work directly with the restaurant ownership, management and staff to help implement the program.  We will also have area specialists who will assist the coaches.  They will be available for consultations on reducing energy costs, saving water, reducing food waste, optimizing the restaurant for recycling and composting, and acquiring as much local, organic produce, meat and seafood as possible.  These area specialists will work directly with suppliers, contractors and farmers to ensure restaurants have what they need to be sustainable at a price they can afford.  

I also feel it's important that the public play a role by giving them a chance to support sustainable restaurants.  With transparent ratings on sites like Yelp, Zagat and Seamless, even those who don't follow sustainability will see it as part of the restaurant's identity.  

There is a great deal more to the program and a lot more to decide as we continue to ramp up.  Any opportunity to discuss the program and how it can best serve the restaurant community is very welcome.