Posana Earns Green Restaurant Status

This week Posana Café in downtown Asheville furthered their commitment to the community by becoming the only 2-Star Certified Green Restaurant® in North Carolina. “We believe that we had to go beyond just ‘saying’ that we were committed to the environment, and really put ourselves to the test,” says Posana co-owner Martha Pollay. The certification is awarded by the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), a non-profit organization that specializes in helping restaurants become more environmentally sustainable through their Certification program and consulting services.

“We worked intently to meet the GRA’s requirements,” says Posana Café Executive Chef Peter Pollay. “We’re proud of what we accomplished and we will continue to look for new ways to evolve. We want the quality of our role as conscientious members of the Asheville community to match the quality of our food.”

Located on Asheville’s historic Pack Square, Posana Café began working toward GRA certification in 2009. “We decided from the start that we wanted to reduce our impact on the environment,” explains Peter, “And now, when we show our ‘Green Restaurant’ certification to our customers, they’ll understand that we are willing to hold ourselves accountable to a totally objective institution that can monitor how well we achieve our goals.” Posana Café is one of only 265 restaurants in North America that can call themselves a Certified Green Restaurant®, while the GRA currently works with over 650 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.

Before Posana Café was even open, they incorporated environmentally sound materials and eco-friendly building procedures into remodeling the restaurant for the grand opening in May of 2009. “Our bar top is crafted from Kirei Board, a material made from compressed sorghum stalk and we utilized sustainable products such as Paperstone, Icestone and Torzo on our other surfaces,” says Martha Pollay. “In addition, our carpeting is cradle to cradle and made from a minimum of 25% recycled material and our walls are painted with low VOC paint.” GRA statistics claim that restaurants throw away 100,000 pounds of garbage each year, but Posana Café uses no Styrofoam and has a thorough composting and recycling program.

According to the GRA’s Communications Manager Coleen Oteri, Posana Café has already earned 140 points in the detail-oriented program, which requires that 2 Star Certified Green Restaurants® earn a minimum of 100. Some of Posana Café’s other points came from:

• Eliminating bottled water by installing state-of-the-art water filters
• Recycling waste grease to be made into biodiesel
• Installing energy efficient equipment and water-conserving faucet aerators
• Sourcing to-go utensils and cups made from compostable materials
• Carpeting made from recycled materials and flooring made from rapidly-renewable resources

"Posana Café has made great strides toward becoming more environmentally sustainable, and we commend them for their commitment to these initiatives," says Michael Oshman, Executive Director of the Green Restaurant Association. “We look forward to helping them make more changes in years to come.”