On June 16^th, BRSI received word that our $258,140 Green Restaurant Initiative proposal to the North Carolina Green Business Fund was awarded. As a major component of BRSI's Regional Energy Upfit Campaign, this initiative will be implemented by a partnership with the Asheville Independent Restaurant (AIR) Association seeking to improve the environmental sustainability and economic success of 17 AIR member restaurants. Specific measures to be implemented by participating restaurants include solar hot water installations, HVAC and refrigeration improvements, lighting upgrades, and development of a training course for energy conservation practices. These improvements are expected to save 2.2 billion BTUs of energy each year-the equivalent of turning off approximately 110,000 televisions.

 

The BRSI/AIR partnership is intended to provide the foundation for Asheville as a Green Dining Destination™ city thus increasing tourism and promoting job creation and economic development in the region. The Green Restaurant Initiative will enhance the restaurants' efforts to increase use of renewable energy, improve energy efficiency and promote energy conservation in support of achieving Green Certified Restaurant® status through the national Green Restaurant Association (GRA). GRA is a non-profit that has been setting the standard for green restaurants for over twenty years.

 

AIR members included in the proposal and working towards GRA certification are Bouchon, The French Broad Chocolate Lounge, The Corner Kitchen, The Green Sage, The Green Sage - South, Fiores downtown, Fiores south location, Frankie Bones, Homegrown, Laughing Seed Café, Jack of the Wood, Luella's BBQ, Tupelo Honey Café downtown, Tupelo Honey Café south location, Neo Cantina, and Rosetta's Kitchen. AIR member Posana Café in downtown Asheville is one of only two existing GRA certified restaurants in North Carolina.

A critical element to success of this project is the partnerships being formed between landlords and restaurant tenants to pursue these upgrades. An example of such a partnership is the collaboration between the owners of the Adler Buildings and the Posana Café and the Chocolate Lounge to upgrade the central natural gas boiler/water-source heat pump loop system that serves all tenants (including seven restaurants) located in that building.

 

While efficiency retrofits are a highly effective means of reducing energy consumption, there are also many operational aspects of commercial kitchens that leave room for improvement. Forty-five percent of all energy used in a restaurant is consumed during food preparation, an area over which restaurant staff have significant control.[1] Conscientious use of kitchen equipment has been estimated to reduce restaurant energy consumption by 7%.[2] Typical strategies include assigning responsibility for turning off cooking equipment, exhaust fans, and lights between shifts and at the end of the day as well as keeping lids on stock pots and braising pans, flushing broilers, and defrosting freezers. Even simple measures such as turning off sections of griddles and broilers during slow periods or eliminating long oven preheat times can save hundreds of dollars and millions of BTU.2 We estimate that a 3.5% reduction in energy use will result from a comprehensive education and staff training program. This program will contribute toward the groundwork for broader energy education efforts of both BRSI and the AIR Green Team.

 

Combined, the infrastructural and education components of the grant are expected to save 3.4 billion BTUs of energy each year, a 12% reduction in total energy consumption for the restaurants. In addition to the $258,000 grant, participating business owners are investing a combined $136,000 in energy efficiency improvements, resulting in a total investment of nearly $400,000.

 

The funds for the grant are provided through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds coming through the U.S. Department of Energy. The Green Restaurant Initiative will contribute to the job creation goals of this program by developing over 4,000 man-hours of work for local businesses. Additionally, BRSI has partnered with the Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministries Green Jobs Program to leverage the job-creation potential of the Recovery Act by connecting recovery-act funded job training with recovery-act funded job creation. At least one, if not more, of the recent graduates of ABCCM's Solar Thermal Installation course will be working directly on the restaurant solar thermal installations.

 

The overarching goal of this project is to establish Asheville as the greenest dining destination in the country. To that end, BRSI hopes to see this project grow beyond the initial funding provided through the Green Business Fund. This effort will not only benefit local restaurants, but will also have a positive impact on our community and region, including local farms, local breweries, and other local businesses. 

 

The project is being managed by BRSI Energy Upfit Campaign Manager Tim Ballard and supported by a variety of other BRSI volunteers and staff including John Stevens, Paul Dezendorf, and Steve Cochran as well as the efforts of AIR Green Team members including Peter Pollay, Randy Talley and Kevin Westmoreland.

 

 

 

After earning a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 1969, Lenny began a twenty-year career with Exxon Research, first as a researcher, then as a research manager for fuel and lubricant formulation. Much of his effort was aimed at understanding and minimizing the environmental impacts of Exxon's fuel products. The high point of this part of Lenny's life was four years spent in England managing Exxon's UK laboratory.

 

Lenny left Exxon in 1989 to join Mobil Corporation's Environmental, Health and Safety Department, where he soon became Mobil's in-house expert on climate change. In 1995 he was able to convince Mobil's management, up to its CEO, that the human impact on the climate system was real, if at that time unquantifiable. However, as documented in a 2009 New York Times article, he was unable to convince a broader industry group to accept this position.

 

In 1996, Mobil moved Lenny's job from New Jersey to Virginia and for three years he was a weekend commuter. This was not an enjoyable way to live, so in 1999 he left Mobil and became a climate change consultant for a variety of industrial companies and trade associations. He continued attending the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, which he had been doing since 1995. He can sadly claim that he has watched the Kyoto Protocol from conception, to birth, through a troubled adolescence, to a dysfunctional adulthood.

 

As a consultant, Lenny added involvement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was one of about 500 authors of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report, published in 2001. He was responsible for the chapter on the control of greenhouse gases from industrial sources in IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007. He was also responsible for the section of the AR4's political summary (Synthesis Report) presenting the report's findings on adaptation to climate change and the control of greenhouse gas emissions. When the IPCC won half of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize - Al Gore won the other half - Lenny was recognized for contributing to that accomplishment. Since nothing could possibly top that, Lenny decided to retire at the end of 2008.

 

Lenny and his wife Danny (Danielle) are hikers. They moved to Asheville in 2001 to take advantage of WNC's many hiking opportunities. Over the course of 24 years they hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail. They have also hiked all the trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and most of the high peaks east of the Mississippi, as well as extensively in Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They may be the only Americans to have hiked all of New Zealand's Great Walks.

 

Lenny leads 3-4 hikes per year and maintains seven miles of hiking trail in our area. He has been President of the Carolina Mountain Club, WNC's oldest and largest hiking and trail-maintaining club. He is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), the organization responsible for protecting and maintaining the Appalachian Trail. He is Chair of ATC's Land and Resource Protection Committee, which concerns itself with the myriad of external threats to the Trail including invasive species, climate change, and energy developments. Finally, he has taken responsibility for organizing ATC's 2013 Biennial meeting, which will be held at Western Carolina University. This week-long meeting is expected to attract over 900 people.

 

Lenny's focus within BRSI has been on improving its external communications. He recommended that BRSI start this newsletter and is its editor. He is working to upgrade BRSI's website. He has also taken responsibility for organizing Green Mondays.

 

In his spare time, and he does have a little, Lenny is writing an alternate history novel about what happened after Washington's crossing of the Delaware failed and the American Revolution collapsed. He is also enjoying watching his two granddaughters, Hannah who is 8, and Isa (Isobel) who is nearly 2, grow up.

 

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