How & Why Restaurants Should Focus On Sustainability Efforts

Julie Starr • June 26, 2021



Restaurants are fairly unique businesses in terms of how they operate, what kind of experience they provide, and their cultural impact. There isn’t a city or notable town in the world that doesn’t have a form of a restaurant in it, but despite how prevalent and universal they seem, they are truly highly developed and individualistic entities – or at least, the good ones are.

For this reason, restaurants can often lead the charge in terms of culture and what may be ‘in’ right now. This is why Michelin stars are awarded not only on how excellent food is and how fresh it might be, but how in-season it is, if it’s relevant to today, and how forward-thinking the entire pursuit is.

In this light, restaurants are the best place for focusing on sustainability efforts and bringing that more into the mainstream, or at the very least, they are a large part of that picture. But what could they get out of this, and how could they achieve that ideal in the first place? In this post, we hope to discuss that and more:

Recycling Oil

Cooking oil is used for a wide variety of reasons, from using peanut or canola oil for deep fat fryers to keeping griddles well-curated for the cooking of meats, it’s true that many restaurants have quite a large oil quotient as alternatives and large scale air frying installations aren’t altogether that feasible as of the moment.

Thankfully, more and more businesses are opening up that can use this recycled oil for a wide array of healthy pursuits, such as contributing to sustainable biofuel efforts. If your restaurant operates in an urbanized area, odds are you will have access to a program like this. Removing and storing the oil in containers and making sure you manage these logistics well enough does take time, but it can be a fantastic alternative to help achieve better sustainability efforts. And, of course, as a form of recompense, these efforts can be truthfully listed in your promotional material.

Cleaning

Using eco-friendly and non-toxic cleaning materials can help your restaurant remain as hygienic as possible without having to contribute to supporting unsustainable products. You may also find that using excellent restaurant hood cleaning services can help you ensure your ventilation and grease buildup are properly dealt with, thus increasing the cleanliness and utility of your daily operations. In this case, regular hood cleaning can actually thoroughly lessen the risk of a fire, too, as grease is flammable and is a real sticking point for unclean restaurants. That in itself is worth the investment.

Sustainable Ingredients

Of course, sustainable ingredients are also very important to consider. Odds are, a range of excellent farms, grocers and butchers are committed to sustainable ingredients in your local area. For instance, high-end restaurants are turning to more sustainable practices by supporting sturgeon farms that are sustainable, ethical, and still retain access to the best of the best caviar.

Opting for fish that aren’t overfished or come from sustainable fishing sources can help you retain your ethical procurement over time. Choosing in-season vegetables, organic and free-range meat humanely procured, and ensuring that all of these stocks can be replaced will help you ensure that in the end, your restaurant is a champion of these processes.

Food Fairs & Education

It can be healthy to educate the town around you. Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to ignore the priority of running your business and appealing to your guests. That said, there may be a way to combine both of those intentions.

For instance, it could be that you decide to run a food fair or festival geared towards showing off local produce and what it can do. This might help you strike a deal with a local sustainable farm that helps you sell products wholesale through your enterprise while also ensuring guests can sample the best dishes with those ingredients in tow.

For some, this might involve showcasing sustainable and organic cheeses in the local environment, or a vegan festival showcasing environmentally-friendly alternatives to certain foods. The more you can introduce these concepts, dishes and products to people in a friendly, healthy manner, the more that you apply this as a new norm, and the more receptive people are to going out of their comfort zone. That can be a tremendous achievement in the life of your business.

Reduce Food Waste

As a head chef, curating a menu that people enjoy can be tough, but making sure that you reduce food waste can be tougher. Yet if you plan for this, and use that food wastage to help inspire specials of the days or meals that can be used to help shift product, then you don’t have to throw out certain goods.

It could also be worth considering donating to food banks if you have certain items that are unlikely to sell but are close to their expiry date, especially tinned and packaged products that haven’t been tampered with. Ultimately, however, great stock rotation and avoiding the tendency to over-order can help you avoid throwing out items. Regularly training your staff to make sure they limit their own food waste (such as by avoiding simple mistakes) can also help in the long run.

Commit To Learning

Restaurants are made and supported by how relevant and present they are . For this reason, they must always focus on what their next step is, and how they can appeal to people this year. It’s amazing just how much awareness surrounding the importance of sustainability has improved the zeitgeist in recent years, and so innovations are escalating at a rate hitherto unseen. For that reason, restaurant owners and chefs should focus on learning all they can, no matter if that’s by following this website or making sure they keep on top of the news cycle or local food guides. This way, you can always commit to the best practices going forward.

With this advice, we’re sure you’ll focus on sustainability efforts in the best possible manner.

Greener Clicks: How to Reduce Your Environmental Impact with Sustainable Digital Marketing

By Julie Starr • March 31, 2025
In the race to decarbonize our world, one area often overlooked is digital marketing. While it might seem inherently clean compared to print or physical campaigns, our online activities have a real and measurable environmental footprint. From servers powering your website to emails filling up inboxes, every click, stream, and scroll contributes to carbon emissions. At Taiga Company, we believe digital strategies can be powerful and low-impact. Here’s how to get started. Optimize for a Low-Carbon Web Why it matters: Websites and digital ads are hosted on servers that consume electricity, often powered by fossil fuels. Every time a user loads your site or ad, it uses energy. How to reduce your impact: Host green: Choose web hosts that use renewable energy or offset emissions. Clean up your code: Streamlined, efficient code reduces load times and energy use. Compress and reduce images: Smaller files mean faster pages and fewer emissions. Limit heavy media: Videos and animations are carbon-intensive; use them mindfully. A faster, leaner website isn’t just better for the planet—it also boosts SEO and user experience. Email Marketing with Intention Why it matters: Every email sent, received, and stored requires energy. Multiply that by millions of sends, and the impact adds up. How to reduce your impact: Clean your lists: Remove inactive subscribers to avoid waste. Segment wisely: Only send emails to those who will truly benefit. Use plain-text when possible: It’s lower in data and often more accessible. Reduce frequency: Send fewer, higher-quality emails with genuine value. Intentional emailing reduces not only emissions but also improves deliverability and engagement. Sustainable SEO and Content Strategy Why it matters: Search engines crawl, index, and serve up billions of web pages daily. Thoughtless content and bloated sites add to the load. How to reduce your impact: Create evergreen content: Focus on high-quality pages that stay relevant longer. Streamline your site structure: Fewer clicks to find content = less energy use. Use minimal plugins and scripts: Especially ones that load on every page. Green your CMS: Some content management systems are more resource-efficient than others. Sustainable SEO isn’t just eco-friendly—it’s good strategy. Fewer, better pieces often perform better than content mills. Rethink Marketing Automation Why it matters: Automated emails, ads, and data syncing can create a lot of digital clutter. That clutter eats up storage and energy. How to reduce your impact: Audit regularly: Retire old workflows and outdated automations. Optimize syncing: Reduce how often and how much data is transferred. Segment with purpose: Better targeting means fewer wasted sends. Use expiration dates: Don’t let outdated content or assets live forever. Efficient automation can reduce emissions and improve performance. Digital marketing isn’t going away—and it shouldn’t. It offers powerful tools for connection, education, and growth. But like all tools, it can be used more sustainably. At Taiga Company, we’re committed to helping organizations lower their environmental impact without sacrificing reach or results. Sustainable digital marketing is not only possible; it’s essential. Ready to make your marketing aligned with your company's corporate sustainability plan? Let’s start the conversation.

World Water Day 2025: How Beverage Brands Are Leading on Water—and Why Communicating It Matters

By Julie Starr • March 24, 2025
At Taiga Company, we work alongside brands who are not only doing the hard work of sustainability—but are learning how to talk about it in ways that connect with their stakeholders. This World Water Day , we’re reflecting on how leading beverage companies are advancing bold water stewardship goals and communicating those efforts clearly, thoughtfully, and strategically across digital platforms. Water is foundational to the beverage industry. From ingredient sourcing to packaging to community health, it’s a resource that demands attention—not just in terms of conservation, but in terms of how that commitment is shared with consumers, investors, regulators, and partners. Below, we’re highlighting three beverage companies whose recent water stewardship actions—and storytelling—stood out. PepsiCo: From Field to Community, Global Water Replenishment in Action PepsiCo launched 16 new water replenishment projects across nine countries in 2024 alone, restoring more than 1.7 billion liters of water to local ecosystems. These projects are practical and people-centered—ranging from irrigation efficiency in Texas to sustainable farming practices in the Dominican Republic. What stood out: clear project data, human-focused storytelling, and alignment with global frameworks. PepsiCo’s water webpage provides easy access to targets, progress updates, and case studies, helping stakeholders understand both the “why” and the “how.” Suntory Global Spirits: Water at the Heart of the Brand Suntory’s brands—from Maker’s Mark in Kentucky to Yamazaki in Japan—share a common origin: water. The company’s commitment to being net water positive by 2050 isn’t just a corporate goal—it’s integrated into brand storytelling, on-site conservation efforts, and supplier engagement. Their message is rooted in authenticity: water isn’t just an operational input, it’s an essential ingredient in their identity. Learn more on Suntory’s efforts via their LinkedIn post . Asahi Group Holdings: Building Local Water Resilience Together In the Netherlands, Asahi’s Koninklijke Grolsch partnered with stakeholders in the Twente region to develop a local water platform focused on reducing consumption and innovating wastewater reuse. This goes beyond operational efficiency—it’s about building water resilience within a shared ecosystem. Their community-first framing and long-term investment approach were key themes in this post . Why This Matters At Taiga Company, we believe that sustainability actions only go as far as their ability to be understood, felt, and trusted. Communicating water stewardship isn’t just about reporting metrics or sharing photos of wetlands (although both can help). It’s about giving stakeholders the context they need to see a company’s values in motion—clear commitments, thoughtful execution, and measurable impact.  If your team is evolving its water strategy—or simply looking for better ways to communicate what you're already doing—we’d love to be part of that conversation.
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