Sustainable Dining: The Michelin Green Star
You may know that Michelin, the French tire company that also makes restaurant guides, has an award called the Michelin Star, given to restaurants it considers to be the very best.
The award was created in 1926 to encourage more tourists to drive around and visit restaurants, which in turn would increase the number of tires sold.
But did you know there's also the Michelin Green Star?
The Michelin Green Star is awarded to restaurants that are making a positive impact on the environment.
Restaurants can earn the Michelin Green Star by using environmentally friendly methods in their business, such as getting ingredients from local farmers, composting food waste, or reducing the amount of single-use plastic they use.
The award was first revealed in 2020, and there are currently about 450 restaurants that have one.
Of these, almost 100 are in France, nearly 75 are in Germany and about 50 are in Italy. But 27 are also in Japan, with four more in Taiwan, three in South Korea and three in Thailand.
The Michelin Green Star is a great way to find restaurants that are trying to be more sustainable.
However, not everyone agrees with Michelin's criteria for what makes a restaurant "green."
Andrew Sun wrote in the South China Morning Post that it's usually high-end restaurants that get awarded Green Stars.
So, of course they are able to spend more money buying ingredients from small local farmers rather than buying them cheaper in bulk, for example.
Sun believes that awarding Green Stars to high-end restaurants is elitist, and that cheaper restaurants can create much less waste.
For example, "nose-to-tail" cooking, where every part of an animal is cooked and eaten, is considered good for the environment, as nothing is wasted.
But you're more likely to see this style of cooking at cheaper restaurants than high-end ones, Sun argues.
