Find great restaurants
Discover new spots doing good work.
Know your foodprint
Our mission
Our goal is a thriving, sustainable food service industry. We want to help people find eco-friendlier options when they're dining out, and we also want to spread the word about restaurants leading the way toward greener operations through our partners.
Reduce your impact
Little things can make a big difference.
Build community
Help create a sustainable dining movement.
How EcoMeter works
EcoMeter helps you find the restaurants in your area that are making commitments towards sustainability.
We look at four categories to evaluate restaurants and determine where they land on the EcoMeter. When a restaurant starts working with one of the partners in the categories, it boosts their EcoMeter rating.
How we score:
Food waste
Chew on this: one-third of all food produced globally is wasted. The good news? Local groups are finding solutions.
Takeout packaging
More dining out, less throwing out. Find restaurants making zero-waste takeout easier.
Supply chain
Does food taste better when it's sourced in earth-friendlier ways? Only one way to find out.
Community initiatives
When you support restaurants spreading the EcoMeter mission, you're helping to reduce waste.
EcoMeter categories
Food waste
The world has a food waste problem – but we also have food waste solutions.
In Canada, 58% of food produced is wasted from farm to plate (source) and $49 billion worth of food is sent to the landfill or composed each year (source). Food waste goes way beyond tossing out a wilted bunch of cilantro from the fridge – it’s everything in our supply chain that doesn’t get eaten or diverted because it’s spoiled, expired or discarded. Along with being wasteful and contributing to greenhouse gas, it’s a waste of money for restaurants and consumers.
Local groups and restaurants are doing fantastic work making sure more food gets eaten instead of tossed. EcoMeter partners are finding ways to track food waste, sell perfectly good surplus food, or donate extra food to non-profit groups.
Takeout packaging
A tough number to swallow: in 2018, about 82 million single-use cups were thrown in the garbage in Vancouver (source). Coffee cups are a common culprit, but it’s also plastic utensils and containers. While many takeout containers claim to be recyclable, 86% of them end up in landfills (source). There’s got to be a better way, right?
Vancouver-based groups are building zero-waste solutions like container sharing, washing services for reusables, and plastic footprint tracking. You can jump on board to minimize single-use plastic use by choosing restaurants and partners that offer reusable takeout packaging.
Supply chain
For EcoMeter, supply chain connects the entire food experience from farm (or ocean) to fork. It has a massive impact on emissions and carbon footprint, and includes everything from product sourcing to how the food ends up at your front door.
A lot of restaurants are doing great work to minimize their foodprint. In our supply chain rating, EcoMeter recognizes vegan and vegetarian options, local sourcing, and waste diversion practices. We all know how much better a fresh tomato plucked in your backyard tastes compared to one shipped halfway across the world, plus it has a heck of a lot less impact in getting to you.
Community initiatives
Good food, good people. In the Vancouver dining scene, there’s a ton of people finding solutions to tricky sustainability issues and creating real change. Do you know a community group we should connect with to add to our list of partners? Loop us in.
We can connect restaurants with ways to donate surplus food so it doesn’t go to waste. Our partners can also help restaurants do a deep dive into their business to make changes, spread the word about the threat of marine pollution, launch single-use plastic reduction initiatives, and offer free zero-waste coaching to small businesses.