Green Up Your Next Event

According to Greg Christian's publicist, Tali Hylen, "There is a growing trend to “go green” when it comes to event planning as more businesses and organizations recognize their social and environmental responsibilities. People are gaining consciousness about the considerable environmental costs and environmental waste involved with catered parties, and are working to find ways to decrease their collective ecological footprint. As the push to conserve energy and reduce wasteful operations is on the rise, one Chicago caterer is pleased to announce that his company will now expand to offer green and sustainable services for all elements involved with catered events.

Greg Christian Catering and Events offers such ‘green’ services as: natural, healthy, organic sustainable menus, invitations printed on recycled paper, biodegradable service ware, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, on and off-site composting and recycling, and numerous other ideas to help transform Chicago corporate meetings and parties, weddings and special events into green events. He also practices water conservation, offers re-usable living botanical centerpieces, and donates un-served foods to local food banks." How cool is that? I personally don't have catered events, but if I did, I would certainly look for a caterer as ecologically conscious as Greg. I have been to a few corporate meetings/events, and I'm usually shocked at all the stuff that gets thrown away. Perhaps if more conscious consumers got on the planning committees of these events, there would be a lot more caterers like Greg.

Greg says, "The reason we are including food miles to the recipe is to raise peoples consciousness to how far their food travels. The biggest polluter in the world is the global food system. Period. To lesson this pollution-chefs need to pay more attention to this-for the right reason. Chefs say they buy local for flavor. This is a good start-but the real reason should be -to save Mother Earth from all the pollution we-as chefs-contribute. When chefs start talking about food miles-people will listen-and pay more attention to where there food comes from. When chefs talk about better flavor-people will be a bit less apt to buy local-since getting to a farmers market-is very inconvenient for most-----so I will educate chefs to talk food miles-when they realize the pollution they are saving-and they pass this knowledge to their customers-real change will happen faster-so we can heal Mother Earth--and last as a species."

For more information about Greg Christian Catering and events, please visit www.gregchristian.com. If you don't live in the Chicago area, you might have luck finding a ecologically minded caterer in Co-op America's National Green Pages. They only have 30 restaurants/caterers listed so far, but one just might be in your neck of the woods. Alternately, you might talk to your caterer about your preferences, and educate them in the process. Go local, go durable, go organic, and try for zero waste!