Earth Day: Asheville Leads America's Greenest Dining Destinations (VIDEO)

While restaurants in western North Carolina have long been in the forefront of the local foods "farm to table" movement, a unique collaboration between the Blue Ridge Sustainability Institute (BRSI) and the Asheville Independent Restaurant (AIR) Association places North Carolina's popular mountain town into the front ranks of "America's Greenest Dining Destinations."

"The community spirit and commitment to collaboration among these restaurateurs is remarkable," noted Tim Ballard, BRSI's Green Restaurant project manager.

Going beyond light bulbs and good intentions on this year's upcoming Earth Day, April 22, an extraordinary array of restaurants has taken a huge step and signed on to a "comprehensive green restaurant certification program," dealing with larger issues of waste management, energy efficiency and chemical reductions to water. With a focus on sustainability, participants are also taking part in a "buddy system" on local suppliers, green ideas and clean energy developments.

"The Asheville restaurants understand going green is the right thing to do," said Randy Talley,
co-owner of the Green Sage and founding Chair of the AIR Green Team. "It's good for the community, good for the planet, and good for our bottom line."

Using seed money from both the North Carolina Green Business Council Fund and the federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the private/public initiative seeks to significantly shift operations toward clean energy sources and stands to reduce annual energy consumption by an estimated 3 billion BTUs.

Earlier this spring, in fact, local protests targeted a deadly coal-fired plant serving Asheville and western North Carolina, which has been singled out for toxic coal ash issues and reliance on coal stripmined from mountaintop removal operations.

"We know that it takes a community working together to create positive change," said Erika Schneider, Outreach Coordinator for the solar installer Sundance Power Systems. "The green restaurant project is the perfect example."

As part of a "true collaboration" across the region, according to nationally acclaimed Asheville filmmaker Adams Wood, the restaurants "opened their doors and roof hatches for our cameras and shared their passion." Along with fellow award-winning filmmaker Rod Murphy, their Industrious Productions company put this together "Dine Green, Asheville" video sampler. Murphy noted: "We were struck by the energy and enthusiasm of BRSI and AIR. We realized that there was a genuine sense of community empowerment -- we wanted to help them get that story out to a larger audience, mainly because we think it can serve as a model for other communities."

"Dine Green, Asheville!" from Industrious Productions on Vimeo.

Green-certified restaurants in Asheville include: the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, the Green Sage, HomeGrown, Neo Cantina, Posana Café, Tupelo Honey (downtown), Tupelo Honey South and Luella's BBQ. Other restaurants in the process of greening their operations include: the Green Sage South, Bouchon, Burgermeister's, The Corner Kitchen, Frankie Bones, Laughing Seed Café, Jack of the Wood, Rosetta's Kitchen, and Strada Italiano.

 

 

 

Comments

[Kenz300]

11:10 AM on 04/21/2012

Eating healthy keeps you healthy.

[livegan]

09:22 AM on 04/21/2012

FOOD MILES DON'T FEED CLIMATE CHANGE - MEAT DOES

That locally-produced, free-range, organic hamburger might not be as green as you think. An analysis of the environmental toll of food production concludes that transportation is a mere drop in the carbon bucket. Foods such as beef and dairy make a far deeper impression on a consumer's carbon footprint. "If you have a certain type of diet that’s indicative of the American average, you're not going to do that much for climate while eating locally...
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn13741-food-miles-dont-feed-climate-change--meat-does.html

Why would someone choose to be vegan? To slow global warming for one! Here are two uplifting videos to help everyone understand why so many people are making this life affirming choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org

[oneeasyrider]

11:31 PM on 04/21/2012

Strange how two unfunded decade long wars never seemed to evoke a peep from the right or people like you. All liberals remember exceedingly well when your leader Cheney stated, "deficits don't matter" thereby offering justification for squandering the deficit even while hiding war costs outside of annual budgets forcing President Obama to prudently add those costs to the budgetary process for legitimate accountability.

Oh well, I know my response doesn't matter to you, as you aren't interested in intellectual honesty as much as you're motivated by offering confusion and distortion to anyone who'll take your position seriously.

You know, we liberals really would like to give you conservatives a special place to create the "Lord of the Flies" reality you so desperately desire. However, we also know, if that actually was made possible, in the end, if you couldn't take us down with you, it just wouldn't be satisfying and soon you'd be invading our more prudent reality and space.

Amusing, isn't it. What a confused, illogical group you conservatives consistently are.

BTW, does it ever bother you that you knowingly operate on the wrong side of humanity?

[Christopher Philips]

03:49 PM on 04/22/2012

way to say it oneeasyrider! amazing how many people believe and love the 30 second soundbites they are fed from FOX!