Sustainability Consultant Discusses Greening Restaurant and Retail Industry

WASHINGTON — With capital spending activity among restaurant operators trending upward in recent months, nearly half of operators said they made a capital expenditure for equipment, expansion or remodeling during the last three months — the highest level in five months.

Based on reports of the highest net-positive same-store sales results in more than four years and increasing customer traffic levels in November 2011, restaurant operators have a positive outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Forty-seven percent of restaurant operators plan to make a capital expenditure for equipment, expansion or remodeling in the next six months.

Green Building News talked to Justin Doak, founder and president of Ecoxera, a Texas-based sustainability management firm recently acquired by Davaco, to discuss the latest trends in green restaurant and retail building and operations.

Q: What are the trends in greening retail and restaurant facilities?
A: Three to five years ago, the trend was building a green prototype. In many cases, those single-site locations were targeting LEED certification. Today, it is taking the learnings from those pilot locations and incorporating those into upgrades and retrofit rollouts. We cannot forget that retailers and restaurants are multi-site businesses and sustainability programs today are now pivoting around programs that deal with operational efficiencies across the portfolio. For capital-strapped companies, they are exploring sustainability programs that can be impacted through behavioral, policy and procurement modifications.

Those with planned capital [improvements] are merely looking at every way to take existing approved programs and incorporate sustainability-minded best practices into the effort. Retailers and restaurants are focused on portfolio-wide reporting measures and the biggest winners are those that look at multi-site solutions. A small best practice implemented across hundreds or thousands of locations will have a much more substantial impact than a single, shiny, new green store. All in all, there is a shift to the operational and facilities side of the business today.

Q: What are the challenges for going green?
A: One, figuring out where to start. And two, settle on the goals/targets. And three, how to do this with an existing budget or build the business case for R&D monies. And four, then use results to build momentum within the organization for a formal program that can become part of a stakeholder communication.

In summary, arriving at a common goal that all teams and partners can measure against and innovate around takes time and leadership decision-making. If a company doesn’t have top-level support yet, the program has to built from the ground up and that takes drive and commitment from within the organization

Q: What are companies doing right?
A: They are digging in deep around one, what they have control over, and two, what their biggest footprints are … meaning they are targeting solutions that are relative to their business type. Each retailer and restaurant has its own business model, supply chain, real estate footprint, operational policy, etc. What used to be an industry competing around who was first to accomplish LEED certification now is an industry making specific commitments to a specific part of their footprint. Countless companies are touting zero-waste goals or renewable energy commitments, etc. Multi-site retailers and restaurants have done what any person does in the path of recovery — they have acknowledged and accepted their scale of environmental impact and are correcting it by addressing the biggest areas first. For some, that might be energy, others, water use and waste. For others, that is material use reduction.

Regardless of the goal, accomplishing these focused goals is done by holding both payroll employees and vendor partners accountable to solutions. Roundtable solutions around targeted goals with metrics to measure continuous performance is what this industry is doing right.

Q: What are your recommendations to those in the industry?
A: Get started now accessing your multi-sites. There should be a sense of urgency as every month you wait, that is one less month you can impact the reduction of expenses. And the good news — these cost reductions drop to the triple bottom-line! Everyone has approved/slated capital and programs for 2012. Get creative and do your best within those scheduled programs. If you don’t know where to start, look to your peers. They more than likely have a similar footprint to you. See what commitments they have made around sustainability, put a firm target in place for 2012 to your teams — one that has some sort of measurement to back it — and see what the teams come up with. The future is about taking your kilowatts per square foot or pounds of waste per square foot or gallons of water per occupant closer and closer to zero each year. When you think about putting sustainability measurement tools like that in place and hold your teams accountable, a more efficient way of doing business will become inherent to your ongoing decision making process.