Sustainability

Devon Quinn operates not just the Avondale restaurant Eden and the various catering businesses of The Paramount Group, but also grows a wide variety of plants for their use in a greenhouse. "It’s just about that connection from earth to plate,” he says. 

Food waste is a huge problem that not only deprives hungry people of food but also contributes greenhouse gases. The app Flashfood allows users to buy groceries nearing their sell-by dates from stores at half price, preventing them from being thrown out. 

In a year in Chicago, the app Too Good to Go has redirected around 108,000 meals from landfills by allowing consumers to buy unsold surplus products from restaurants and other food service businesses at a reduced price. 

Geoffrey Baer highlights some Chicago buildings addressing climate change by striving for net-zero energy, incorporating renewal energy sources, repurposing existing buildings, and incorporating agriculture, among other things.

More than 20% of material sent to the landfill in Chicago by weight is food waste, which decomposes and releases the harmful greenhouse gas methane. Instead, that food waste could benefit the earth by being composted.