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Description
Restaurants have a cumulative impact on the environment, economy, and society. The majority of restaurants are small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). Review of sustainability and industry literature revealed that considering restaurants as businesses with sustainable development options is the most appropriate way to evaluate their sustainable practices or lack thereof. Sustainable development is the means by which a company progresses towards achieving an identified set of sustainability goals and harnesses competitive advantage. The purpose of this thesis is to identify barriers to implementing sustainable practices in restaurants, and explore ways that restaurateurs can incorporate sustainable business practices. Energy consumption, water use, waste production, and food throughput are the four sustainability indicators addressed in this thesis. Interviews were conducted with five Tempe, Arizona restaurants, two of which consider their operations to be sustainable, and three of which are traditional restaurants. Results show that for traditional restaurants, the primary barriers to implementing sustainable business practices are cost, lack of awareness, and space. For sustainability-marketed restaurants, the barriers included a lack of knowledge or legal concerns. The sustainability-marketed restaurants have energy-efficient equipment and locally source a majority of their food purchases. There is a marked difference between the two types of restaurants in perception of barriers to sustainable business practices. I created a matrix to identify whether each indicator metric was applicable and present at a particular restaurant, and the potential barriers to implementing sustainable practices in each of the four indicator areas. Restaurants can use the assessment matrix to compare their current practices with sustainable practices and find ways to implement new or enhance existing sustainable practices. Identifying the barriers from within restaurants increases our understanding of the reasons why sustainable practices are not automatically adopted by SMEs. The assessment matrix can help restaurants overcome barriers to achieving sustainability by highlighting how to incorporate sustainable business practices.
ContributorsFreeman, Emily McConnell (Author) / Eakin, Hallie (Thesis advisor) / Basile, George (Thesis advisor) / Williams, Eric D. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
I present a new framework for qualitative assessment of the current green purchasing practices of U.S. state governments. Increasing demand from citizens for green public purchasing has prompted state governments to adopt new, and improve existing, practices. Yet there has been little assessment of public green purchasing in academic research; what has been done has not provided the conceptual support necessary to assess green purchasing practices as a single component of the procurement process. My research aims to fill that gap by developing a conceptual framework with which to assess the status of green purchasing practices and by applying this framework to determine and describe the status of green purchasing in the five most populous U.S. states. The framework looks at state purchasing practices through the lenses of policy, policy implementation, and transparency.
ContributorsSharma, Lucky (Author) / Melnick, Rob (Thesis advisor) / Dooley, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Basile, George (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
My creative thesis project was done through a collaborative project with Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC), a non-profit organization whose mission is to support and recognize suppliers and buyers that champion a transition to sustainability-driven value within the purchasing process of corporations and other organizations. Within the SPLC intranet available to members, there is an abundance of guidance to purchasing professionals procuring materials and services required by their organization. This guidance comes in forms such as case studies, example contract language, webinars, green certifications and labels, and various helpful tools. The issue and value add of the project lies in the current organization and location of guidance on the SPLC website. Much of the information is scattered, and many stakeholders have voiced their confusion when seeking guidance on a particular project or process they are undergoing.
Our solution, the “Category Landing Pages” would tackle this issue by re-organizing SPLC’s resources into category specific pages where any and all guidance SPLC has on a particular purchasing category can be easily accessed. Many procurement professionals often specialize and deal in a certain spend or commodity category, which makes a category organized page the most logical. This is certainly valuable to individuals and organizations who subscribe to a membership with SPLC, but there is also opportunity for SPLC to benefit from this restructuring.
Our solution, the “Category Landing Pages” would tackle this issue by re-organizing SPLC’s resources into category specific pages where any and all guidance SPLC has on a particular purchasing category can be easily accessed. Many procurement professionals often specialize and deal in a certain spend or commodity category, which makes a category organized page the most logical. This is certainly valuable to individuals and organizations who subscribe to a membership with SPLC, but there is also opportunity for SPLC to benefit from this restructuring.
ContributorsDecoster, Anthony Wayne (Co-author, Co-author) / Behravesh, Shirley-Ann (Thesis director) / Basile, George (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05