Finding ways to make businesses greener is increasingly popular and vital, but each industry requires some specialization to ensure its green practices can work at scale. Here are six tips for running a green restaurant.

1. Update and Upgrade Your Equipment

Restaurant equipment should be as efficient as possible in order to conserve energy. You should check everything from your lightbulbs to your office equipment to your cooking and food storage appliances to see whether they're green, energy-efficient devices. If they aren't, you should consider replacing them. It may seem like an expensive endeavor, and it will be a large investment in the short term, but switching to green appliances will save you money in energy bills in the long term. If you can only upgrade one appliance or a few at a time, start with the biggest energy-users, such as freezers, refrigerators and dishwashers.

2. Buy Organic

Buying locally grown and organic produce can have a multi-faceted benefit to your restaurant's efforts to go green. Sourcing your food supply from local farmers will reduce the need for food to be transported to your restaurant from far away, which will, in turn, reduce the use of fuel and its emissions. Organic food is grown without the use of chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides that can harm the environment. If you purchase locally produced food, even if it's not organic, you'll have an easier time learning how the food was grown, what kinds of chemicals various foods have been treated with and how eco-friendly the farmer's practices are.

3. Find Ways To Reduce Food Waste

Food waste is one of the biggest sources of waste in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Finding ways to reduce it is a good place to start transitioning to a greener way of managing your restaurant. One strategy is reducing portion sizes so less food is left on patrons' plates after meals. This way, less food will be scraped into the garbage when the table is cleared. Another strategy is to switch to smaller dishes while keeping portion sizes relatively unchanged. Studies have shown smaller dishes encourage patrons to eat more of their portions. You can also encourage patrons to take home their leftovers, but it's a good idea to provide biodegradable boxes or bags when employing this strategy.

4. Encourage Recycling

One of the easiest methods of going green in restaurants is encouraging recycling among both staff and patrons. Wherever you provide trash receptacles for patrons, make sure there is an additional bin, clearly marked as recycling. Include signage promoting the benefits of recycling. Make sure employees have a system in place for separating rubbish and recycling when preparing food and clearing tables. When you purchase supplies, look for recyclable or biodegradable packaging and avoid products with packaging that can't be recycled.

5. Invest in Reusable and Biodegradeable Cooking and Eating Tools

Depending on the type of restaurant you're managing, you may use more of either reusable or single-use tools, so this will affect whether you choose to purchase utensils and flatware that can last for long periods of time or biodegradable ones. Avoid styrofoam and single-use plastic straws as much as possible. Paper-based straws and boxes are most preferable, but you can also utilize recyclable materials for boxes and utensils, as well as reusable straws. Ideally, you should seek out paper products made with recycled paper to further reduce deforestation.

6. Conserve Water

Water is one of the largest sources of municipal waste. However, there are multiple ways you can reduce your restaurant's water waste. You can install low-flow toilets and water faucet flow restrictions, which will have the added benefit of lowering your water bill. You can also use tap water and filters for drinking water rather than purchasing bottled water, which contributes to both water waste and plastic pollution.

Any industry can be adjusted to be operated in a greener capacity, as long as you know what types of adjustments are required to do so successfully.