My highlights, pictures, and videos from William McDonough's Greener by Design San Francisco May 19, 2009 keynote are on my EcoProtection Blog. The Greener by Design conference was the second annual conference on the intersection of sustainability, innovation, and profitability in product design. Fedele Bauccio On May 9, 2009, NRDC honored sustainable food leaders at the Growing Green Awards presented at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. A panel chaired by Michael Pollan, best-selling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, selected Fedele Bauccio, Founder and CEO of Bon Appétit Management Company as the Winner of the NRDC 1st Annual Growing Green Awards. Fedele has been recognizing and addressing the connection between food and climate change through his Low Carbon Diet initiative, targeted at reducing its associated carbon emissions by 25 percent by reducing meat and cheese in its operations. (Read the Gratitude Gourmet interview with Fedele Bauccio from Fortune Brainstorm Green) I asked Fedele Bauccio if other food companies are looking at his Company's innovative work and improving their food practices as a result. He mentioned that a few restaurants understand the concepts and use practices such as identifying the Farm Name on the menu. "As more restaurants do it, customers are going to demand it...Consumers will also go to the store and ask the right questions about the origin of food" "At the 150 colleges, we educate students about what we feed them." One of his Chefs will appear at the Cooking for Solutions Monterey event this weekend. I asked Fedele if he will be receiving additional awards in the near future in addition to the EDF Innovator and NRDC Growing Green Awards. He will be one of the first individuals inducted into the University of Portland School of Business Hall of Fame. I briefly spoke with Michael Pollan and asked him if the U.S. was now ready for a Sustainable Food Advisor to the Obama Administration and if he has spoken with the Obama Administration about this. He mentioned Michelle Obama and what she's done with organic gardening at the White House, and the fact she "said it was 'organic'...these are fighting words to the industry". During the NRDC cocktail reception, I took 2 pictures of food and drink to share with Gratitude Gourmet readers. A video from The Compound interviewing the NRDC winners is also below. Expect more great work and opportunity for sustainable food providers! The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week because they recognize the impact of livestock on the environment. You can read the full article here. Farm to School programs are popping up all across the state. These programs connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities that will last a lifetime, and supporting California’s farmers. This SF Gate article advises changes to Federal Diet Guidelines and is written by from T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.,professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University and co-author of "The China Study and Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., M.D., former president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, and a preventive medicine consultant at the Cleveland Clinic. He is the author of "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease." |