How Being “Green” Can Save Green

Most everywhere you turn these days the “Green” movement is staring you in the face. As a business and individual it can be overwhelming; understanding what to do, what’s most important, what can you afford, how to do it. Contrary to our friend Kermit, being “green” can be easy; in fact it can help save money. And it’s often the little things that add up.

As a restaurant group supporting local farmer and fishermen has been the core of our culinary philosophy for years. This concept of sustainability has begun to trickle down into our every day; people are reusing paper from the printer, employees are more conscious about recycling, turning the lights off when they aren’t in use and little by little it’s becoming part of the company culture.

We’ve taken this sustainable concept a few steps further over the last few years by implementing ideas our NHC Green Committee deems environmentally responsible and financially feasible. After completing an audit from Water Wise, The Mooring installed low flow water aerators on all guest and kitchen hand sinks, and converted to flush-less urinals in the men’s bathroom using Ecoblue cubes. With these changes they saved an approximate 10,000 gallons of water between 2007 – 2008 during the months of Jan-July.

Blackstone Caterers works with a Tiverton pig farmer, donating all their food waste from events that then goes to feed the pigs. Everything is saved from in-house prep, to all food and beverage waste from all on-site events. Over the course of 2008 they saved an estimated 42,000 lbs of food waste by donating it to the farmer. The less trash we have, the more we save.

Our restaurant group is about to take this one step further in 2009. In the next few months we are embarking on an overhaul of seven refrigeration/cooler systems at six of our restaurants with the help of National Resource Management.

So here is how it works, a typical restaurant’s walk-in freezer has fans that are always running to blow the cold air into the freezer – they never stop, which means they are always using energy. This is where National Resource Management comes in. They install a monitoring device that tells the fans to shut off and go into “sleep mode” when it reaches the desired temperature. As well, our current fans are being replaced with high efficiency fans that don’t use as much energy.

Let the energy savings begin! Blackstone Caterers went through this process early in 2008, their overhaul also included installing fans on the exterior wall of their freezer so that when the outside air is cold enough, the system will pull that air in, hence not having to generate its own cold air. Since they have made this change they have seen an approximate savings of $22,000 in their electricity!

All these energy reductions do come with a cost, however National Grid may be able to assist in that area, they offer a incentives to help reduce the cost significantly.

We are happy to spread the word on this initiative, in hopes that little by little we all reduce our carbon footprints – feel free to inquire for more information. As we start to see the impact this overhaul we will keep you posted on our energy savings!