WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Restaurants and the food industry in general 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000 are pretty much the most wasteful industry 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 in the world. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.000 For every calorie of food that we consume here in Britain today, 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.000 10 calories are taken to produce it. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.000 That's a lot. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.000 I want to take something rather humble 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.000 to discuss. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.000 I found this in the farmers' market today, 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.000 and if anybody wants to take it home and mash it later, you're very welcome to. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.000 The humble potato -- 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.000 and I've spent a long time, 25 years, preparing these. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:30.000 And it pretty much goes through 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 eight different forms in its lifetime. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.000 First of all, it's planted, and that takes energy. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:39.000 It grows and is nurtured. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:41.000 It's then harvested. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 It's then distributed, 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 and distribution is a massive issue. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.000 It's then sold and bought, 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 and it's then delivered to me. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 I basically take it, prepare it, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.000 and then people consume it -- hopefully they enjoy it. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.000 The last stage is basically waste, 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 and this is is pretty much where everybody disregards it. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 There are different types of waste. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.000 There's a waste of time; there's a waste of space; there's a waste of energy; 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 and there's a waste of waste. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.000 And every business I've been working on 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.000 over the past five years, 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 I'm trying to lower each one of these elements. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:16.000 Okay, so you ask what a sustainable restaurant looks like. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:18.000 Basically a restaurant just like any other. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:20.000 This is the restaurant, Acorn House. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.000 Front and back. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:25.000 So let me run you through a few ideas. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:27.000 Floor: sustainable, recyclable. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.000 Chairs: recycled and recyclable. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Tables: Forestry Commission. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.000 This is Norwegian Forestry Commission wood. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.000 This bench, although it was uncomfortable for my mom -- 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:39.000 she didn't like sitting on it, 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:42.000 so she went and bought these cushions for me from a local jumble sale -- 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:44.000 reusing, a job that was pretty good. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.000 I hate waste, especially walls. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:49.000 If they're not working, put a shelf on it, which I did, 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.000 and that shows all the customers my products. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.000 The whole business is run on sustainable energy. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:57.000 This is powered by wind. All of the lights are daylight bulbs. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Paint is all low-volume chemical, 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.000 which is very important when you're working in the room all the time. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 I was experimenting with these -- I don't know if you can see it -- 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.000 but there's a work surface there. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.000 And that's a plastic polymer. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 And I was thinking, well I'm trying to think nature, nature, nature. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 But I thought, no, no, experiment with resins, 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:13.000 experiment with polymers. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.000 Will they outlive me? They probably might. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.000 Right, here's a reconditioned coffee machine. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.000 It actually looks better than a brand new one -- so looking good there. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Now reusing is vital. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.000 And we filter our own water. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.000 We put them in bottles, refrigerate them, 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:29.000 and then we reuse that bottle again and again and again. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.000 Here's a great little example. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:33.000 If you can see this orange tree, it's actually growing in a car tire, 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.000 which has been turned inside out and sewn up. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.000 It's got my compost in it, which is growing an orange tree, which is great. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:40.000 This is the kitchen, which is in the same room. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:42.000 I basically created a menu that allowed people 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.000 to choose the amount and volume of food 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:46.000 that they wanted to consume. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:48.000 Rather than me putting a dish down, 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.000 they were allowed to help themselves to as much or as little as they wanted. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.000 Okay, it's a small kitchen. It's about five square meters. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.000 It serves 220 people a day. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.000 We generate quite a lot of waste. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:00.000 This is the waste room. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.000 You can't get rid of waste. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.000 But this story's not about eliminating it, it's about minimizing it. 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.000 In here, I have produce and boxes 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.000 that are unavoidable. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.000 I put my food waste into this dehydrating, desiccating macerator -- 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.000 turns food into an inner material, 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.000 which I can store and then compost later. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.000 I compost it in this garden. 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:24.000 All of the soil you can see there is basically my food, 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.000 which is generated by the restaurant, 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.000 and it's growing in these tubs, which I made out of storm-felled trees 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 and wine casks and all kinds of things. 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:33.000 Three compost bins -- 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 go through about 70 kilos of raw vegetable waste a week -- 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.000 really good, makes fantastic compost. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:39.000 A couple of wormeries in there too. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:41.000 And actually one of the wormeries 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.000 was a big wormery. I had a lot of worms in it. 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 And I tried taking the dried food waste, 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 putting it to the worms, going, "There you go, dinner." 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 It was like vegetable jerky, 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.000 and killed all of them. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.000 I don't know how many worms [were] in there, 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:56.000 but I've got some heavy karma coming, I tell you. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 (Laughter) 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 What you're seeing here is a water filtration system. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 This takes the water out of the restaurant, 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 runs it through these stone beds -- this is going to be mint in there -- 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 and I sort of water the garden with it. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.000 And I ultimately want to recycle that, put it back into the loos, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.000 maybe wash hands with it, I don't know. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 So, water is a very important aspect. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.000 I started meditating on that 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.000 and created a restaurant called Waterhouse. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.000 If I could get Waterhouse to be a no-carbon restaurant 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.000 that is consuming no gas to start with, that would be great. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.000 I managed to do it. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.000 This restaurant looks a little bit like Acorn House -- 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:31.000 same chairs, same tables. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:34.000 They're all English and a little bit more sustainable. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.000 But this is an electrical restaurant. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:38.000 The whole thing is electric, the restaurant and the kitchen. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 And it's run on hydroelectricity, 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.000 so I've gone from air to water. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.000 Now it's important to understand 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:47.000 that this room 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.000 is cooled by water, heated by water, 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.000 filters its own water, 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.000 and it's powered by water. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.000 It literally is Waterhouse. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.000 The air handling system inside it -- 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.000 I got rid of air-conditioning 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.000 because I thought there was too much consumption going on there. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.000 This is basically air-handling. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.000 I'm taking the temperature of the canal outside, 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.000 pumping it through the heat exchange mechanism, 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.000 it's turning through these amazing sails on the roof, 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.000 and that, in turn, is falling softly onto the people in the restaurant, 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:15.000 cooling them, or heating them, as the need may be. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.000 And this is an English willow air diffuser, 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:19.000 and that's softly moving 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.000 that air current through the room. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:24.000 Very advanced, no air-conditioning -- I love it. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.000 In the canal, which is just outside the restaurant, 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.000 there is hundreds of meters of coil piping. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:30.000 This takes the temperature of the canal 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.000 and turns it into this four-degrees of heat exchange. 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.000 I have no idea how it works, but I paid a lot of money for it. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 (Laughter) 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000 And what's great is one of the chefs who works in that restaurant 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.000 lives on this boat -- it's off-grid; it generates all its own power. 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:46.000 He's growing all his own fruit, and that's fantastic. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.000 There's no accident in names of these restaurants. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.000 Acorn House is the element of wood; Waterhouse is the element of water; 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:54.000 and I'm thinking, well, I'm going to be making 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.000 five restaurants based 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:00.000 on the five Chinese medicine acupuncture specialities. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.000 I've got water and wood. I'm just about to do fire. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:05.000 I've got metal and earth to come. 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:08.000 So you've got to watch your space for that. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 Okay. So this is my next project. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Five weeks old, 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:15.000 it's my baby, and it's hurting real bad. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000 The People's Supermarket. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.000 So basically, the restaurants only really hit 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:21.000 people who believed in what I was doing anyway. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000 What I needed to do was get food out 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.000 to a broader spectrum of people. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.000 So people -- i.e., perhaps, more working-class -- 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 or perhaps people who actually believe in a cooperative. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.000 This is a social enterprise, 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.000 not-for-profit cooperative supermarket. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.000 It really is about the social disconnect 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 between food, communities 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 in urban settings 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 and their relationship to rural growers -- 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000 connecting communities in London to rural growers. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.000 Really important. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.000 So I'm committing to potatoes; I'm committing to milk; 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:52.000 I'm committing to leeks and broccoli -- all very important stuff. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.000 I've kept the tiles; I've kept the floors; 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.000 I've kept the trunking; I've got in some recycled fridges; 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 I've got some recycled tills; I've got some recycled trolleys. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:01.000 I mean, the whole thing is is super-sustainable. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:03.000 In fact, I'm trying and I'm going to make this 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:06.000 the most sustainable supermarket in the world. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.000 That's zero food waste. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:10.000 And no one's doing that just yet. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.000 In fact, Sainsbury's, if you're watching, 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.000 let's have a go. Try it on. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:16.000 I'm going to get there before you. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:19.000 So nature doesn't create waste 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:21.000 doesn't create waste as such. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:24.000 Everything in nature is used up in a closed continuous cycle 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.000 with waste being the end of the beginning, 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.000 and that's been something that's been nurturing me for some time, 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:33.000 and it's an important statement to understand. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:35.000 If we don't stand up 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:37.000 and make a difference 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.000 and think about sustainable food, 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:42.000 think about the sustainable nature of it, 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:44.000 then we may fail. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.000 But, I wanted to get up and show you 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.000 that we can do it if we're more responsible. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:51.000 Environmentally conscious businesses are doable. 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:54.000 They're here. You can see I've done three so far; 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.000 I've got a few more to go. 00:07:57.000 --> 00:07:59.000 The idea is embryonic. 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:01.000 I think it's important. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.000 I think that if we reduce, reuse, refuse 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:06.000 and recycle -- right at the end there -- 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.000 recycling is the last point I want to make; 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.000 but it's the four R's, rather than the three R's -- 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.000 then I think we're going to be on our way. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.000 So these three are not perfect -- they're ideas. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:20.000 I think that there are many problems to come, 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:23.000 but with help, I'm sure I'm going to find solutions. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.000 And I hope you all take part. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.000 Thank you very much. (Applause)