Okay, so it feels like every restaurant right now is trying to be sustainable. Like, you walk in, and instantly there’s a wall of plants, recycled-looking napkins, maybe they praise where their meat and produce came from, and some quote about saving the planet written in chalk. Alright, maybe that sounds a tiny bit harsh. Maybe you’re like, “Oh wow, this place must be good for the environment,” right? Except, give it five minutes, and you’ll start noticing the cracks.
Now, not all restaurants are like this, just some of them, just like some businesses supposedly go “all in” on sustainability, but things still don’t add up, make sense? Here’s an example: they’re serving drinks in single-use plastic cups, the lights are blindingly bright at 2 pm, and someone’s blasting the air conditioning with the doors wide open. You will actually see this way more often than you might think. So yeah, it looks green, but it’s really just green theatre.
Sometimes, “Eco-Friendly” is Just Part of the Branding
As in, it’s not genuine or anything like that. But yeah, that’s the whole thing when it comes to greenwashing, it can be fairly sneaky to a degree. So, think of it like this: it’s all show, no depth. A lot of restaurants just sprinkle eco-buzzwords around because they know it sells. Usually, it’s words like “sustainable,” “ethical,” “eco-conscious”, you’ll see that. But sometimes, you can poke holes in it, especially their menu. So, just check the menu, is everything flown in from three continents away? Or they brag about being “zero waste,” yet the kitchen bins are overflowing by lunchtime?. It’s like saying you care about the planet, but only when customers are watching. Which, yeah, that’s basically how it all is.
But if you’re actually sustainable, you can’t exactly fake that. For the most part, it shows up in boring stuff, like how they source ingredients, how they deal with food scraps, how they clean, and how they package things. But of course, that’s not as Instagrammable as a bamboo chair and a hanging fern, right?
How About the Packaging?
Should be easy enough to tell, right? Well, yeah, this is actually one of the best ways. You better believe that a lot of places think they can just slap a leaf logo on plastic and call it a day. But that doesn’t make it eco-friendly; it just makes it look eco-friendly (see the difference here?).
The restaurants that actually care invest in certified, compostable stuff that breaks down properly, yeah, things like takeaway packaging that doesn’t just end up sitting in landfill for the next 200 years.
Does “Natural” Décor Do all the Talking?
Alright, so this one is by far the low-hanging fruit of restaurant greenwashing. There’s a type (usually that Millennial over-priced burger restaurant aesthetic) where it’s recycled wood tables, rope lighting, and maybe a few mason jars with mint leaves or something in them. It’s all part of the aesthetic, but it doesn’t actually mean anything if they’re not backing it up. If they’re blasting the AC all day or using imported bottled water, that plant wall isn’t saving the planet. It’s barely even pretending at this point. It’s like a costume at that point.
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