Every Day is Earth Day for Farmers Restaurant Group

April is here in our nation’s capital, and with it comes not only the beautiful green and bright colors of springtime, but also the scattering of annual Earth Day and even earth month efforts and celebrations.

We are delighted to participate and hope to encourage more restaurants, businesses, and our guests to think and function more sustainably for the future of this great land of ours.

We all know how the classic Woody Guthrie song goes — This land is your land, this land is my land — and at Farmers Restaurant Group we’re working hard across all of our existing restaurants, and the ones on the way, to keep it as green as we can every day.

Since we opened our first Founding Farmers nearly a decade ago, we have been working hand in hand with our farmer owners and suppliers, and our mindful, creative staff, to build and operate restaurants that have the health of this planet at the very top of our To Do lists, every single day. For us, this also means, working with outside consultants to advise and evaluate our restaurants and our practices, such as the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), a non-profit organization whose mission is to create an environmentally sustainable restaurant industry. GRA evaluates participating restaurants every year using transparent, evidence-based certification standards that look across seven categories: energy, water, waste, food, chemicals and pollution reduction, disposables, and building. Restaurants are awarded GreenPoints™ based on the percentage of items that meet each criterion.

All FRG restaurants that have been evaluated – Founding Farmers DC, Tysons, Montgomery  County, and Farmers Fishers Bakers – are proud 3 Star Certified Green Restaurants®. Our newest restaurant, Farmers & Distillers will be evaluated later in the year, but we are confident it will reach the three stars of its siblings.

Some of the specific practices that earn us stars naturally include our scratch-made food, which consistently uses regional produce, dairy, and eggs, humanely treated, naturally raised meat and chicken, and sustainable seafood, as well as the number of vegetarian and vegan dishes on our menus. What earns the most GreenPoints™ across all of our restaurants are our energy efficient practices, from Energy Star appliances to occupancy sensors driving lighting and, notably, the way we handle our waste. We know that trash matters, whether for an individual household or a bustling restaurant. Our entire team is committed to recycling everything we can, using refurbished-recycled materials in our furniture and paper goods. We have our eyes on even the smallest of details, such as seeking out compostable drinking straws, which we now use across all of our restaurants. Or the more obvious environmental biggies, such as plastic water bottles, which we bypass with built-in water filtration systems. All of these practices, including our in-house recycling & composting program, keep 90% of our waste out of landfills.

To celebrate Earth Day with a restaurant group that celebrates the earth every day, we invite you to join us for a meal or a drink at any of our locations to learn more about what keeping it green means to us. Reservations are recommended. And stay tuned for more stories of our earth-friendly work. Every day, we are looking for ways to preserve the land and waterways we all call home.

*photo: a beautifully sustainable green wall feature at MoCo’s Founding Farmers.

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