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An innovative chef has come up with an alternative dishwashing procedure that cuts his kitchen's water usage by 80 percent.

Harvest Power Inc. has opened a plant at Walt Disney World to convert food wastes from restaurants, supermarkets and others into electricity and fertilizer.

GreenBlue's Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) announced this week that McDonald's USA is the newest participant in its How2Recycle Label Program. A member of the SPC since 2005, McDonald's is the first national restaurant chain to join How2Recycle, a program dedicated to clearly and consistently communicating recyclability to the public.

Darden Restaurants has plenty of problems, but it's doing well with its sustainability goals, writes Mike Hower. The Olive Garden parent company has successfully curbed per-restaurant energy and water use, saving the company $25 million since 2008

The Food Waste Reduction Alliance has released an updated guide. The 2015 Best Practices and Emerging Solutions Guide offers practical steps and examples to help food manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants cut food waste. More than 30 member companies across the food industry contributed insights and case studies, including The Campbell Soup Company and Sodexo. 

This week, the city of Austin, Texas implemented a new rule that prevents restaurants from tossing wasted food straight into the trash.

McDonald's announced Tuesday that it has set two ambitious environmental goals that it wants to achieve by 2025. The fast food giant wants to have 100% of its customer packaging come from renewable, recycled, or certified sources and have recycling available in all its restaurants. Currently, 50% of its guest packaging comes from sustainable sources and only 10% of its restaurants are recycling.

The drought-stricken city, located about 170 miles north of San Francisco, recently declared a "stage 3" water emergency, which makes it mandatory for businesses and residents to reduce water usage.

The Humane Eating Project is an app that helps those concerned by animal cruelty to make conscientious choices while eating out.

Vegas still prides itself on selling unfettered indulgence. Round-the-clock gambling, high-end nightclubs and decadent restaurants are not going away. Yet the opening of the Strip's first green space last month is further evidence that, regarding its relationship to the environment, Sin City is turning a new leaf. Featuring native Southwestern plants, recycled metal furniture and fountains built with locally sourced quartz, The Park, as it's called, is designed to create a sustainable microcosm of the surrounding desert landscape and provide a leafy path away from the Strip's tourist-choked sidewalks. It's a bold move away from fabulist themes that ignore the local ecosystem.

North Carolina's Proximity Hotel is the first US hotel to receive the Green Building Council's LEED Platinum status, due in part to elevators that generate power and other features that help the hotel use 40% less energy than comparable competitors. "The only ambition was, let's sincerely consider sustainable practices with each of our decisions," said Dennis Quaintance, CEO of Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels.

Recent studies have shown that climate change could affect the tourism sector. A lack of snowfall in California led to a decrease in business for local ski resorts and restaurants.

Four representatives recently introduced a bill called the Food Donation Act of 2017 (H.R. 952), which addresses some of the greatest barriers that restaurants and food service companies face when they want to give away their excess edible food. This bill clarifies and enhances the coverage areas of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, the legislation that made the donation of excess food from businesses to people in need legally protected.

Researchers from the University of Hawai'i at M?noa are working with Maui based company Pacific Biodiesel to develop a way to make water from restaurant grease traps reusable.

Hilton Worldwide will cease serving shark fin and stop accepting new orders for shark fin dishes by April 1, 2014. The ban covers all restaurants and facilities operated by its 96 owned and managed properties across Asia Pacific.

Philanthropy has long been a common business activity. From local restaurants sponsoring their town's little league team, to Fortune 500 companies with million dollar foundations, companies have found that it's good business sense to give back to the communities in which they operate.

Restaurants across the country soon will be able to let customers know how nutritious and sustainably sourced their food is thanks to the United States Healthful Food Council (USHFC).

Darden Restaurants and the Walton Family Foundation will invest in struggling fisheries to secure a sustainable seafood supply.

McDonald's launched its first Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability framework alongside a new sustainability report. The framework sets new goals of purchasing beef from sustainable-certified sources by 2016, procuring 100% of fiber-based packaging from certified or recycled sources, and increasing energy efficiency 20% in company-owned restaurants in 7 markets

Chipotle became the first major restaurant chain to announce it would use only non-genetically modified organisms in its food preparation across its over 1,800 locations, according the New York Times.