One of the most restaurant that catch my attention about its sustainability is Vue de Monde in Melbourne, Australia. Vue de Monde try be sustain in a lot of part of their restaurant. Being sustain in one part of the restaurant is challenging already, but Vue de Monde has 5 part that is sustainable. In the beginning of applying the sustainability, Vue de Monde also find it challenging. They want to support sustainable local business as well, however, at some parts, they could not find the suppliers to supply them, so they choose to look for overseas supplier that can help them to keep sustain. Some sustainability practices that Vue de Monde applied are:
1. Ending over-fishing
Vue de monde support to stop over-fishing by using the supplier that provide sustainable fish.
2. Saving energy
a. Using induction cooks-top
There are several benefits by using induction cooks-top. Firstly, the amount of energy that induction cooks-top consume is minimum, and since it does not produce excessive heat, it also reduce air-conditioning needs. Moreover, induction cooks-top requires less cleaning which results in the reduction of cleaning and labour costs
b. Using LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lights
For the same brightness, LED Lights need lower energy compare to halogen bulb, and the lifespan is up to 5 years. LED lights produce less heat than halogen bulb which results in the reduction of air conditioning energy consumption.
c. Ventilated Ceiling
Vue de Monde installed ventilated ceiling to replace the traditional extraction. This ventilated ceiling consumes less energy.
d. Secondary glycol refrigeration
Every fridges in the bar and kitchen are not cooled by independent refrigeration unit, but using centralized chiller. With this, less amount of refrigerant gas is needed, heat emissions, and less energy than traditional refrigeration.
3. Production Efficiency
a. Using polyethylene pipework
Vue de Monde uses polyethylene pipework as their sanitary sewer, rather than using PVC pipework. Because the production of PVC creates substances that are dangerous for health such as carcinogens (which capable of causing cancer), mutagens (which causes genetic mutation), and teratogens (which causes malformation of an embryo).
b. eWater
eWater is a system which enables to produce a hospital standard sanitizer and cleaning liquid by just using water and salt. This results in the reduction of packaging, fuel that the transport used to deliver the sanitizer and cleaning liquid, and the pollution that is occurred due to the production of chemicals.
c. Water
Switching water cooled into air cooled chillers for the air conditioning systems helps reducing water consumption.
4. Recycling
Recycling facilities are installed to sort and recycle the food waste, co-mingle waste, used oil waste and the rest of the waste that goes to landfill.
5. Support local business
All furniture in the restaurant is made through order, depends on the customer request and the design are created by local artisan. The timbers and veneers that is used to manufacture the furniture are harvested from eco-select forest.
Environmental benefit:
1. Recycling, which means less waste
2. less chemical usage that harm environment
3. In a year, the energy saving is approximately 15.330 kilowatt hours
4. less usage of water
Financial benefit:
1. less energy cost, because less energy used
2. less labour cost
3. less cleaning cost
Vue de Monde monitor the practices by:
1. Constant tuning of the operation every year
2. Meter separately the consumption of energy in each areas of the restaurant, to track which areas that require the most energy supply. The consumption then will be compared with the standard energy consumption of other related fine dining restaurant and last energy consumption of the restaurant, and then evaluated.
3. Working with ARUP to achieve sustainable work practice
Reference:
- Le Cordon Bleu Professional Culinary Management Program Theory Notes. BSBSUS401 Implement and Monitor Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices.
- Sustainability. Retrieved from Vue de Monde: http://www.vuedemonde.com.au/vuedemonde-sustainability.html
- The Last Fish in the Pan. Retrieved from Vue de Monde: http://www.vuedemonde.com.au/vuedemonde-the-last-fish-in-the-pan.html