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Commercial kitchens big and small use a significant amount of resources in the process of creating and delivering food to a volume of people.
However there are ways to minimise their environmental impact, save on energy and water costs and still deliver great meals.
Greening up any space should be done in a holistic manner with consideration to all elements including energy, water, waste, the local environment and how you use it. So here the low down on greening up your commercial kitchen.
Unless you’re about to embark on a full scale kitchen renovation, you will need to maintain normal operations while improving your level of ‘greenness’. So in this article we will focus on the items you can easily retrofit or do with just a small amount of kitchen downtime (if any). So here we go.
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This is simply looking at your bills (energy and water) and understanding how much you are using and when, so that you know your starting point and can measure any changes as you go.
Plotting energy and water usage in simple spreadsheet is all that’s needed to produce a graph of what you’ve used over the past year. You’ll probably notice seasonal trends in your data and it will most likely correspond with business activity. So there’s your baseline.
By that we mean ‘how do you use the kitchen’. Look around to see what’s happening during operational hours and ask yourself the following questions.
Not only do they save water, they also save energy in terms of hot water heating. Any area you can reduce water use will be beneficial. Here are some simple things to consider
And now for energy saving items. Generally speaking things that heat use lots of energy, and kitchens have lots of things that heat. So here are some items to help with energy conservation which are over and above the behavioural things mentioned earlier.
Be sure to make notes of when you make changes (mark dates on a calendar or similar) and every few months update your energy and water spreadsheet data and see how it’s going. If you make changes you should see a reduction in energy and water use over time, saving you dollars and helping the environment.
If you are planning on a full kitchen renovation don’t forget to use low/no VOC paints and cabinetry, building in easy to use recycling points near food preparation areas and designing for efficiencies. Again, a properly qualified sustainability person should be able to help with this if you need some guidance.
If you don’t want to tackle this yourself, the team at Green Moves is highly qualified and experienced at holistic sustainability in the commercial built environment (we even train builders and assessors). So if you’d like a professional sustainability advisor/energy auditor to help with transforming your kitchen, we’d be happy to assist. Email us info@greenmoves.com.au
Green Moves provides totally independent, holistic sustainability and resource efficiency advice and guidance to both commercial and residential sectors. We do not sell or take commission on any products so remain totally impartial in terms of advice and guidance given to clients. We practice what we preach and are experts in our fields working with several State and Local government bodies, educational sectors and a wide variety of commercial clients.
Alsco would like to thank Danielle King for this article. She is the Director and Senior Sustainability Consultant at Green Moves Australia.
Alsco also offers cost and energy efficient renting solutions. With a wide range of customised services to suit your needs, you’ll sure create and maintain a greener workplace. Save on cost and go green, partner with Alsco. Call us 1300 659 892 now.
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