FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION WITH OUR REGULAR NEWSLETTER
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Welcome to the Sustainable Restaurant Association
Newsletter #8
Finally, spring
has arrived and we're looking forward to tables on pavements and British
asparagus as well as a jam-packed season of sustainable events and workshops,
food festivals, award ceremonies and announcements.
It's not all
fun in the sun though, we've also been sifting through the latest news and
reports on sustainability and food-related issues, to keep you up to date and
fully informed on the world of restaurant sustainability.
WHAT'S NEW WITH THE SUSTAINABLE RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION?
The
Sustainable Restaurant Association has been a hive of activity since our launch
on 1 March - and we're excited to be signing up new Members, Suppliers and
Friends every day. For a full list of restaurant Members (independents and
chains) and their details visit our Restaurant Directoryat www.thesra.org. Whether you're a restaurant, a supplier or a restaurant
goer, there lots of ways to join the Sustainable Restaurant Association - here
is an update on how to get involved...
- Become a Restaurant Member
- Join our Supplier Directory
Our
Members-only Supplier Directory is a great way for restaurant suppliers or contractors with
products that help their customers operate more sustainably to advertise to our
restaurant Members. We're busy creating a categorical system for our Supplier
Directory so our Members can search for products by type (Food and Drink, Catering
Equipment & Clothing, Packaging & Disposables etc.) So if you have a product, service,
discount or offer you'd like to include, please drop Ed a line. - Become a "Friend of the SRA"
Sustainable
diners we haven't forgotten you! For more
information on how you can get involved, check out our "Friends of the SRA"section online. Keep checking back as we'll also be launching new campaign
materials to help customers lobby for change.
We're
keen to work with the very best restaurant booking guides, those that are also
interested in putting sustainability on the agenda and giving customers greater
choice. We're already working with the likes of toptable and Harden's. If
you'd like to join us as a Partner Guide, please Get in touch.
More
about Harden's...
For the past 12 years, Harden's have
conducted their annual survey of what restaurant-goers in London
- and in more recent years across the UK - really think of the
restaurants they visit. Restaurateurs, of course, are welcome to take part too
(although their views about their own restaurants are of no particular
interest!). All participants receive a free copy of the resulting
guide which contains more than 2500 listings of establishments across
the whole of the UK.
This is the 20th annual survey. Help make
it the biggest and best yet, while taking the opportunity to make sure that the
best restaurants in your area get the recognition they deserve. And secure your
own free copy of the UK's
only national survey-driven restaurant guide.
We
are arranging special rates for Members to attend selected events throughout
the year. These include sustainability workshops, networking events and
conferences. Keep checking our Events page for updates and more details.
EVENTS - GET INVOLVED
We're also flagging
up other interesting events - food festivals, awareness days, sustainability
conferences and more. Here's our round up of key events for April-May. We'll be
uploading more details on all events to our website Events pageso keep
checking in to see how you could get involved.
April
19 Business in the Community 'Big Tick' Winners Announced
22 International Earth Day
26-30 Green Office Week
26 The S. Pellegrino World's Best 50 Restaurants - Winners Announced
May
3-9 Compost Awareness Week
6 UK General Election
4-5 Business Respect - the Responsible Business Summit UK
7-10 Real Food Festival
8-9 Ludlow Spring Festival: Beer Bangers and Bread
22 International Day of Biodiversity
24-30 National Vegetarian Week
28-31 Taste of Edinburgh
29 Sunday Times Green List published
29 Oak Apple Day
31 Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling Day
JOIN US AT THE REAL FOOD FESTIVAL
Join us at the
Real Food Festival (7-10 May) in Earls
Court, London. Henrietta
Green from FoodLovers Britainwill be on hand, inviting visitors to meet FoodLovers Approved producersand
taste their wares plus we'll have lots of information on how to be a more
sustainable restaurant or customer, so come on down and find out how you can
get involved. Highlights also include The Sheep Show, the Chefs Theatre with
Raymond Blanc, Thomasina Miers and Ollie Row (find out more about their
restaurants in our Restaurant Directory and Sustainable Success Stories Case Studies), the Riverford Organic Field Kitchen Restaurant, and Cookery Workshops
for hands-on advice about cooking real food. Touted as one of the best foodie
events of the year, we can't wait to meet you there.
AWARDS, AWARDS, AWARDS!
April and May
are a hotbed of food and sustainability award ceremonies, announcements and
celebrations. We're looking forward to toasting the responsible business
winners of Business in the Community's 'Big Tick' todayand the roll call of
the Sunday Times Green Liston 29
May.
And we can't
wait for the S. Pellegrino World's Best 50 Restaurantswinner announcement event on 26 April. The 2009 list included UK
restaurants The Fat Duck(2nd) and St. John Restaurant(14th), so
fingers crossed for even higher ratings for them and an increased UK
representation overall. We'll be there, applauding all the winners, but
especially those that have gained increased ratings by being more sustainable.
We're also up
for our first award this year, which is fantastic news for us and all our Members,
friends and supporters. Our nomination falls under the Sustainable category of
the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards 2011. You can vote for us at http://www.cntraveller.com/magazine/innovation-and-design-2010/id-awards-2011-nominations.
Thanks, in advance, for your support!
GETTING TOPICAL
Sustainability
is a huge subject and there's always interesting news and research coming through.
Some items that caught our eye recently include:
Food Climate Research Network
The Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)is a UK research council-funded
initiative. Its aim is to better understand how the food system contributes to
greenhouse gas emissions, and to research and promote ways of reducing them -
and we're pleased to include FCRN's Tara Garnett on our Advisory Board. Key
news items from their recent mail-out include:
The latest
Global Forest Resources Assessment by the FAO, which reports that world
deforestation, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural
land, has decreased over the past ten years but continues at an alarmingly
high rate in many countries. Large cloud, small silver lining perhaps? Either
way, restaurants and diners can do their bit to prevent further
deforestation by thinking carefully about what they source and how they
deal with waste.
CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme launched this April
We've been
talking to Adam Walford of Finers Stephens Innocent (FSI)law firm about the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, launched this April, and
designed to help reduce carbon emissions by significant users of electricity. It's unlikely to affect many restaurants - the
threshold is an energy spend of over £500,000 a year - but it is a sign of
progressively tighter regulations on energy efficiency in buildings. As Adam
explains:
"It's
not only the food you serve and the energy that you consume in cooking it that
can increase your sustainability - it's the premises you occupy too and there
may in time be a financial incentive to occupy energy efficient premises. The
Government is increasing pressure on property owners and occupiers to increase
energy efficiency in buildings. April sees the start of the CRC Energy
Efficiency Scheme, a carbon emissions trading scheme, which will affect
significant users of electricity.
The
Scheme imposes obligations on significant users of electricity, who are obliged
to participate, all of which are aimed at working to reduce emissions going
forward. In addition, the CBI has stated that they and other organizations are
exploring the possibility of 'greening' business rates, which would reward
businesses occupying energy efficient buildings."
If
you're worried about the CRC or have any other sustainability or legal
concerns, give us a call and we'll point do what we can to help.
Lighter Later
Last but not
least, we wanted to know what you think about the Lighter Later campaign?
Designed to help save energy and help people enjoy longer sunnier days, it
proposes to move Britain's
clocks forward by one hour throughout the year. This could brighten up our days
by an average of 55 minutes of extra useable sunlight each day - and research
shows that it could cut at least half a million tonnes of CO2 emissions each
year, save lives on our roads and give a boost to sport, leisure and domestic
tourism.
Not
specifically related to restaurants, we know! But we are interested in all
actions that can bring positive change to the environment - and it beats asking
your opinion on the Election. We'll leave that kind of taboo, dinner table talk
for our next post-Election newsletter in May.
Until then,
please forward our Newsletteronto other interested parties, stop by for a chat
on the SRA twitter pageor visit our website at www.thesra.org.
Thanks for
your continued support.
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