Grubhub : Commits to Driving Sustainability Across the Restaurant Industry, Launches New Partnership with Green Restaurant Association and its Green Restaurant® Certification Program

When considering purchasing decisions from grocery stores or restaurants, sustainability is cited as an important factor to more than 80 percent of consumers. Today, Grubhub is committing to helping our restaurant partners increase their sustainability, honoring those who are already pushing the industry forward, and continuing our own sustainable efforts with initiatives like #CutOutCutlery. Grubhub is teaming up with the Green Restaurant Association (GRA) to establish long-term initiatives to empower more restaurants to become sustainable and help diners discover environmentally-minded dining options.

'Food is central to our daily lives and the choices we make around food, whether they are big or small, have a significant effect on the environment,' said Devry Boughner Vorwerk, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Grubhub. 'While there's still a lot of work to do, today Grubhub is committing to helping our partners and the restaurant industry as a whole become more sustainable.'

Throughout April, all donations from Grubhub's Donate the Change program will benefit the Green Restaurant Association, an international nonprofit organization, which works to shift the restaurant industry toward ecological sustainability by encouraging restaurants to green their operations using transparent, science-based certification standards. With its turnkey certification system, the GRA has made it accessible for thousands of restaurants to become more environmentally sustainable in energy, water, waste, food, disposables, chemicals, and building and more. The Green Restaurant Association will use Grubhub's diner donations toward the following long-term programs:

• Green Restaurant® Certification: The GRA will work with restaurants in the Grubhub Restaurant Network to pass the GRA's assessment and become Certified Green Restaurants®. The Green Restaurant Association's (GRA) standards reflect 30 years of research in the field of restaurants and the environment. The purpose of the evolving GRA standards is to provide a transparent way to measure each restaurant's environmental accomplishments while providing a pathway for the next steps each restaurant can take towards increased environmental sustainability.
• Grubhub Restaurant Sustainability Fund: The GRA will provide subsidized support to small- and medium-sized restaurants looking to implement sustainable practices, such as packaging, waste reduction, composting, water efficiency and more.
• Certified Green Search Filter: As more Grubhub restaurant partners become Certified Green Restaurants®, Grubhub and GRA will add a badge on the restaurant's listing on Grubhub. Grubhub will also add a search filter so diners can easily discover sustainable-focused businesses.
• Ongoing Education: GRA will provide the Grubhub Restaurant Network with ongoing educational materials and resources to continue their sustainability journey.

Grubhub's Donate the Change feature allows diners who opt in to round up their change on their orders. Last year, Grubhub diners across the country donated a total of $21 million dollars to organizations and communities in need of support through the Donate the Change program. Grubhub invites more diners to opt in and join these efforts to help make the restaurant industry more environmentally sustainable.

'The restaurant industry is the largest consumer of electricity in the retail sector and a major contributor to garbage in our oceans and landfills,' said Michael Oshman, CEO and Founder of the Green Restaurant Association. 'We are proud to partner with Grubhub to help solve these pressing environmental issues. I applaud Grubhub's commitment to working with the Green Restaurant Association to improve thousands of restaurants' environmental impacts while making it easier for consumers to find Certified Green Restaurants®.'

In February, Grubhub officially joined the #CutOutCutlery campaign and committed to dramatically reducing the number of single-use plastics that enter the environment. In the coming months the Grubhub app and website will begin automatically defaulting to select zero utensils and napkins with every order. The increase of single-use plastics is not only a top concern for consumers, but this small but significant change will generate significant savings for restaurants across the country.

At Grubhub, we understand that we all have a responsibility to protect our planet, and every little decision and action we take can make a difference. This Earth Day, our hope is that Grubhub's partnership with the Green Restaurant Association will help make sustainability in food more accessible for both our diners and restaurant partners.