The Duluth Grill is a family-style restaurant that's finding ways to cut down on trash, reduce energy use, and encourage volunteering in the community. The hanging lamps use LED bulbs, for a dramatic reduction in electricity use. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Some big corporations and some small businesses are taking a serious look at their impact on the environment. Some are using a science-based framework called the Natural Step to try to operate more sustainably. Stephanie Hemphill visited one, and has this report:
Transcript
Some big corporations and some small businesses are taking a serious look at their impact on the environment. Some are using a science-based framework called the Natural Step to try to operate more sustainably. Stephanie Hemphill visited one, and has this report:
The Duluth Grill is a family restaurant. Tom Hanson is the owner here. He says things started changing for the restaurant when he decided he should be offering healthier foods. He says too many of us are gaining too much weight. So he changed the menu, and now he says people can still go out and have a good time without it all going to their waist.
“Whether it’s French fries or fruit or healthy home-made soups, people can be socially engaged eating out but you’re not necessarily sacrificing your eating habits or eating styles.”
His menu offers healthy ethnic meals, gluten-free foods, and teas that claim health benefits.
Once Hanson started thinking about the health and well-being of his customers, he started thinking about the other impacts of his business. He joined a group of about a dozen businesses recruited by a local non-profit to try out the Natural Step approach to sustainability. The Natural Step was developed in Sweden, but it’s being used all over the world.
Restaurant staffers attended training sessions on how ecosystems work, and on what it means to be sustainable.
Manager Jeff Petcoff shows off the new LED lights in the restaurant.
“They produce 12 watts of energy versus 320 watts from the regular light bulbs that we were using prior to this. It’s a little more intimate with dining at night, but we’ve had a positive reaction to that as well.”
The Natural Step program encourages reducing the use of fossil fuels and other resources that have to be mined from the earth. And it calls for not throwing as much garbage into the earth.
In the kitchen, workers separate the trash. There’s a bin for recyclables, one for trash, and one for food scraps. Petcoff says the food waste goes for compost.
“We’ve just made it very easy for our staff to be able to compost and recycle with the bins all over the restaurant.”
The Duluth Grill has reduced its weekly trash pickup, and saved a bunch of money in the process. Owner Tom Hanson says saving money is nice, but part of the Natural Step program calls for not degrading the earth, like by building landfills.
“We don’t live next door to landfill but somebody does, and once you become aware of it, I think, it becomes more compelling to do it.”
And the restaurant encourages its customers to get involved in helping each other. Next to the front door there’s a bin where people can dump their old magazines. A local youth center is recycling them to raise money.
And there’s a bookshelf where people can leave children’s books; it’s part of a community-wide literacy campaign.
One Natural Step principle is about people: a sustainable business operator makes sure the people who work there, and even the suppliers and customers, anyone who has contact with the business, can meet their needs without a big struggle.
Tom Hanson dreams of offering health coverage to all his staff — and maybe someday even child care.
“You could easily consider day care for your staff as being an expense that no small operator could afford. But when you make change little by little, that step could very well enter into our values, and once it becomes one of our values it becomes affordable.”
Many businesses are making these kinds of changes and you might not even be aware of it. But Tom Hanson would say if you’re not sure, ask. You might prompt someone else to do better.
For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
