The following post was written by Sina Scerba and edited by Codee Andreoli.
Climate change is one of the biggest environmental, economic, and humanitarian challenges we face this century. The drought in California is one of the symptoms of the environmental change that is reaching every corner of the globe. Being part of the solution is no longer just a “feel good” environmental cause, but is imperative to our economy, our food supply, our communities and to ensure a livable world for future generations.
Taking our earth stewardship one step further, Global Gourmet has launched our three-part Drought Watch program, spearheaded by Sina Scerba (Director of Special Projects and Sustainability), with Laura Lyons (Owner/Partner) and Aaron Zimmer (Executive Chef). We have partnered with TerraPass to help fight climate change and are very proud to be the first catering company in the nation to take a stance and participate in TerraPass’ conservation program!
Our drought-friendly cucumber cup.
What We Are Doing:
Part One-Analyzing our menus and operations to mitigate our environmental impact, further focusing on our water use in our operations as well as being inspired to create drought-friendly menus.
Part Two-Offset our impact. Offset programs are an environmental tool that can play an important role in fighting a problem that will require many solutions. In partnership with TerraPass, Global Gourmet has committed to contribute a percentage from every event we cater to help fund carbon offset and water restoration projects. These include clean energy from wind farms, landfill gas captures and Bonneville Environmental Foundation Water Restoration Certificates®. One exciting BEF WRC project is the restoration of the Colorado River Delta, which provides farmers, ranchers and other water users with an economic incentive to devise management solutions that restore water flow to critically dewatered ecosystems.
Over the course of the next year, Global Gourmet’s goal is to help restore a minimum of 28,750,000 gallons of water (the equivalent of 44 Olympic-size pools) as well as offset at least 1,610,000 lbs of C02 emissions (the equivalent of 26,640 propane tanks’ emissions for home barbeques.)
Part Three-Further educating our team and clients regarding water issues and consumption. As a helpful tool we’ve put together a list of the high impact ingredients called the “Thirsty Thirty” and a Drought Watch Food Guide, which you can download here. This guide shows which ingredients are “Best Choices” or “Good Alternatives,” which to “Use Sparingly,” and those ingredients you should ideally “Avoid.” Stay tuned for more information and to learn about what you can do at home to help.
Archives
Select Month