The National Restaurant Association has announced that it will work with Georgia-Pacific Professional to identify best practices in the areas of recycling and sustainability, both of which are key components of profitability for the restaurant industry.
“Georgia-Pacific Professional’s commitment to supporting our Sustainability & Social Responsibility imperative is instrumental in advancing the goals of the National Restaurant Association and the industry at large,” said Dawn Sweeney, President and CEO of the National Restaurant Association and National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.
Through an unrestricted research grant from Georgia-Pacific Professional, the NRA will conduct an in-depth study of consumer perceptions related to restaurant operator recycling practices and the correlating effects on consumer traffic and restaurant sales. The study also will examine current recycling practices of restaurant operators and provide a gap analysis between consumer recycling demand and current best practices of restaurant operators.
“Consumers are putting increasing demands on restaurants to be more active in managing their environmental impact, and restaurant owners have consistently shown that they want to meet this challenge while continuing to be cost competitive,” said John Mulcahy, vice president – strategy and category vision for Georgia-Pacific Professional.
The research is part of the new enterprise partnership between the Association, the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) and Georgia-Pacific..
"Based on year 2000 data,[5] researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts named Georgia-Pacific as the fifteenth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States. In that year, Georgia-Pacific facilities released more than 22,000,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air.[6] Georgia-Pacific has also been linked to some of the United States' worst toxic waste sites.
In 1995, the company drew criticism for allegedly pressuring the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to approve legislation that would allow Georgia-Pacific to "avoid installing pollution gear at many of its plants."[7] In 1996, Georgia-Pacific agreed to pay for at least US$26,000,000 in environmental measures and $6,000,000 in fines to settle allegations that particle emissions from its facilities endangered people and crops in the southeastern United States.[8]
In 2007, the EPA announced legal agreements among itself, Michigan, Georgia-Pacific, and Millennium Holdings (a corporate successor of the Allied Paper Corporation) requiring the companies to clean up an estimated $21,000,000 worth of environmental damage to the Plainwell Impoundment Area. Another settlement required an additional $15,000,000 of environmental work on the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site.[9]
5.^ Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 Corporate Toxics Information Project Technical Notes retrieved 12 Nov 2007
6.^ Political Economy Research Institute
7.^ "Tall Timber and the EPA," New York Times, May 21, 1995
8.^ "U.S. and Georgia-Pacific Settle Environmental Case," New York Times, July 19, 1996
9.^ Environmental Protection Agency
(Wikipedia)