A Billion Acts of Green
Earth Day Network’s A Billion Acts of Green® website is designed to prove the idea that real change occurs best when millions of people commit to it with their actions. We invite you to visit it at act.earthday.org [1].
Growing for the Good
The key principles of the Grow™ program are the key components of growing: knowledge, understanding, conscience, and action. We started with the basic premise that change can only start with knowledge. Knowledge leads to understanding; understanding to conscience; and conscience to action. This is growing; this is Grow™.
As technologies, research, and products develop, so will the Grow™ program. Envisioned as anything but static, our intent is to continually learn, educate (ourselves, our customers, and our clients), and implement foods and services that nourish both people and the planet. Please explore the site to learn more about the Grow™ program.
Grow in Action
THE EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA
Following the four key principles of Grow™: knowledge, understanding, conscience and action, we did our homework and were able to define five specific focus points for our Grow™ program. We then developed an icon for each of these areas, which we have paired with its definition on this page. These icons are intended to help all our customers quickly and easily identify items that fall under our Grow™ program, whether it is a sticker on a grab-n-go item, a cling on a breath guard, or an indicator in a catering menu. Additionally, the Grow program and icons were specifically intended to go hand in hand with our existing Food Matters® program, making it possible for customers to tell at a glance which items are good for both themselves and the planet.
- Earth Friendly: this icon denotes non-food items that are recycled, biodegradeable, or made from sustainable resources.
- Go Local: all items that are sourced locally (within a 150 mile radius) are tagged with this icon.
- Hormone-Free Dairy: this icon indicates milk products from cattle that were not given rBGH/rBST (recombinant bovine growth hormone or recombinant bovine somatotropin), a.k.a. artificial growth hormone.
- Natural Protein: proteins that come from animals that have not been given antibiotics or growth hormone, or animals who have been fed a diet of mostly organic feed.
- Sustainable Seafood: indicates seafood that is fished in a sustainable manner.
How You Can Grow
Ten things you can do today to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle:
- Remove yourself from Junk Mail lists.
- Unplug your cell phone chargers when not in use.
- Plug electrical items, such as your computer, into a power strip and switch this off when not using the computer.
- Donate items to charity rather than tossing them.
- Check with your local government on recycling hazardous waste: many communities offer this service for free once or twice a year.
- Whenever possible , print on both sides of the paper.
- Don't use bottled water, buy a water bottle and refill it.
- Buy/use reusable grocery bags—most are very inexpensive (around $1 each) and hold much more, in a much sturdier manner, than regular plastic or paper bags.
- Ride with friends whenever possible. Carpooling is not only good for the environment—it's also good for your wallet.
- Recycle your newspaper. Every week more than 500,000 trees are used to produce the two-thirds of newspapers that are never recycled.
Want to learn more? Go to Global Footprint Network [2] and take the Ecological Footprint Quiz. Along with results they give you some practical advice on reducing the size of your footprint.
To learn more visit the Creative Dining Grow Website here [3].
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