SUSTAINABILITY
THE JOURNEY
Over the past four years we have worked to integrate as many sustainability initiatives as possible across our venues. These have included analysing our packaging and paper use, introducing organic composting for our food waste, development of our kitchen garden at Heide, bottle cycler recycling for all glass bottles and use of recycled items (such as cutlery and furniture) in many of our venues.
To us sustainability is about logic. It is about asking the question as to how things can be done in the most efficient way with the least impact. It has been a cultural shift in our organization which has been embraced by the team and now runs through all areas of the business.
SUSTAINABILITY AT RIALTO
One of the major factors in moving Vue de monde to the 55th Floor of Rialto was the opportunity to enhance our efforts in this area with the latest technology, especially in the kitchen. Our long term goal is to be able to calculate how much energy has been used to put each meal on the plate and by off setting this operate a carbon neutral kitchen. This will involve constant fine tuning of the operation over the coming years. We are working with world leader in sustainability ARUP to achieve this.
THE CHALLENGES
In supporting sustainable local industry we have used in every instance possible local designers, manufacturers and materials. Having said this, there are instances where unfortunately we have had no choice but to look overseas. Examples of this are the bluestone for our bar and for the floor. Our preference was to use bluestone from Deer Park however costs and lead times made the prohibitive causing us much frustration and confusion. In some instances a like product is simply not available. For instance our search for beautiful, high end, fine dining style cutlery that is locally made for the restaurant was not successful. Bespoke pieces proved to be prohibitively expensive. We chose to purchase our cutlery from Christofle whose philosophies of family heritage and long term quality products that are built to last appealed to us for their sustainability, history and longevity.
Our philosophy is that whilst sustainability is a challenging area with many contradictions and misinformation this should not stop us doing what we can and talking about it even though we are not perfect…
You can read more on the specific sustainability initiatives we are implenting at Rialto by clicking on the links below –