Documentation:Open Case Studies/Political Science/Industry6

Climate Change Action Plan

Vancouver Restaurant Industry Group 6

Richard Sun, I'm doing #2 for insects Emilie Holm, Urban Farming

Introduction

1. Reducing carbon emissions from transportation by having multiple community sources of urban farms.

2. Switching from large meat animals to insects to decrease costs

Action Plan

Start partnerships with local farmers. Address present suppliers about their sourcing practices. Support other local businesses. Communicate our business philosophy to the public. Encourage the government to recognize our goals. Host events for other advocacy groups.

Spread the idea of urban farming and create more opportunities to create green environments in the city. The idea of urban farming is to encourage climate change adaption by engaging people in food production via farming communities. The global movement is called "The Urban Farming Movement", and the concept has been growing ever since UN stated that the Climate Change is anthropogenic in 2009.

Implications

The restaurant industry benefit from exploiting unsustainable farming practices. The implications of that are how those practices affect the environment. Of the pressing issues for us is sourcing products and if where we source our product has sustainable practices.

Political

Set an example for other businesses. As a restaurant we feel the responsibility to support sustainable practices and encourage any legislations that align with our practices and supporting our goal. We also encourage prospective suppliers to change their practices.

Urban farming can also supply vegetables for local restaurants. This could be a way to reduce emissions connected to transportation of greens. Therefor supply from urban farming could be a more sustainable choice, but one can imagine that the price would be higher compared to imports, because the lower yield from urban farming.

2. Creating a bug culture can be a bridging point between other nations.

Economic

Locally focused Support farmers with environmentally friendly practices. These farmers will benefit from our business and partnerships, food will only be purchased locally. By buying from local farms, we decrease the travel distance products must travel and therefore decreasing the emissions necessary to transport the food. We will utilize local micro-breweries, such as 33 Acres, and only pour from taps eliminate the use of cans. Avoid importing foreign products to reduce our carbon footprint (if its possible to grow our own fruits and veggies).

2. Rasing crickets over beef is shown to offer a 80x reduction in methane emissions. There is also lower costs associated with rasing crickets than beef. Insects have a much higher cost:protein ratio.

Social

Supporting local farmers, like Sole Foods, we're indirectly supporting vulnerable individuals Providing consumers with the choice to participate in sustainable consumption. We envision connecting food to people and we feel as though our ethical food practices will have a positive impact on our society.

2. Eating insects for proteins instead of large animals can quench the frevor of some animal rights groups. As a lower being, insects can be farmed and eaten with less ethical considerations.

Remaining Challenges

Some of the challenges we will face is expense. Since most large corporation are able to supply goods at a cheaper price it'll certainly be difficult to turn down those opportunities. There's also a possibility that we will have to turn down opportunities to trade with foreign farming industries who hire their vulnerable peoples and will not be receiving our business. It's very limiting but if we truly care about our environmental impact we will have to limit our business relations until other industries align their impact vision with ours.