Hawaii’s First Carbon Neutral Restaurant: Merriman’s

Acting in Time

Through the years, environment-friendly steps have been one of the main focuses of most institutions. Be it huge factories or small-scale steps at home, there have been many innovations to reduce the impact of businesses on the environment. Recently, one of the most remarkable and noteworthy attempts has been made by Peter Merriman in his restaurant on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Acting in Time

According to the esteemed chef, the restaurant business is a reflection of society, and sustainability is important for the industry. He states that the least that can be done is an individual’s personal effort to reduce the carbon footprint and find ways to improve it. For Merriman, the first step in his mission was to understand how the restaurant’s current functioning was affecting the environment. Through 35 years of business, he has made changes at his restaurant to make it more sustainable and eco-friendly. He has also teamed up with GreenPlaces, an organization that works on helping businesses in becoming more sustainable.

Quirky Methods

Quirky Methods

Some modifications for this cause have been functioning for a long time, like local sourcing, on-site cultivation, and solar panels. Through these steps, Merriman’s has been working with local vendors and farmers to make 90% of their raw materials sustainable. The most extraordinary way of cutting down on the restaurant’s carbon emissions that the food joint has taken up is coming up with ‘carbon-friendly’ goat cheese using milk from goat herds from Hawaii Island Goat Dairy. The peculiar diet of limu kohu seaweed given to the goats at the institution cuts down on the methane emissions from goats by 85%. Another sustainability measure taken up by Merriman is reducing the weight of beverage bottles used in the restaurant. He has also been working on replacing glass bottles altogether with biodegradable packaging along with a whole new functioning structure.