Green Restaurants ASSessment (GRASS): A Tool for Evaluation and Classification of Restaurants Considering Sustainability Indicators

: Green restaurants are based on the implementation of environmental management and are closely related to quality management through a set of instruments and programs. This study aimed to build an instrument classification adopting cutoff points and classify restaurants using traffic light scores from the sustainability assessment checklist validated in Brazilian Portuguese for restaurants. The questionnaire classification validation was performed using a cross-sectional study conducted in a convenience sample of 97 restaurants. The instrument has 76 items, and all items were based on yes/no/not applicable answers, comparing sustainability activities. The instrument score was obtained by assigning one point to each “yes” item. Each section received a score, and a total score was provided to the restaurant from the three sections’ sum. International instruments used in the checklist development stage were checked to assist in the cutoff points determination. Therefore, the score for restaurants with low adherence to sustainable practices or red seal ranges from 0 to 40%, restaurants with medium adherence to sustainable practices or yellow seal from 40% > to <75%, and restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices or green seal ≥ 75%. The instrument is divided into three sections (1. water, energy, and gas supply; 2. menu and food waste; 3. waste reduction, construction materials, chemicals, employees, and social sustainability). Percent-ages must be reached in all sections. Researchers did not find any green or sustainable restaurants through the checklist application in the tested sample, and 47.4% of the restaurants had the yellow seal (presenting sustainable activities) with higher scores for Section 2 regarding menu and food waste. The items less scored were the company has goals for the rational use of water, the company achieves zero greenhouse gas emissions with proven partnerships, the company has a documented program to reduce carbon emissions, and towels or uniforms are made of organic or sustainable material. Thus, it demonstrates the attention points and improvements in the analyzed restaurants. We hope that the construction and validation of the checklist and its score’s determination have contributed to broadening the discussions on sustainability in food services and serve as a starting point for future research. Strategies like these are fundamental to improve the understanding of the subject and to expand the knowledge of nutritionists who deal directly with this economic sector.


Introduction
The high demand for away-from-home meals and the increase in the number of restaurants has increased the production of meals, with large waste generation and use of various natural resources significantly impacting the environment [1][2][3].The meals' production must be in the context of social responsibility and sustainability, not just concerning the quality of the offered food [1,4,5].Food services are considered the least sustainable among the world's economic sectors [6].
Given the global panorama of rising economic growth, high environmental demand, and the possible scarcity of natural resources, more sustainable meal production procedures have aroused the interest and awareness of professionals involved in food services.In addition, severe environmental problems, such as global warming, waste, and pollution, have also increased people's awareness of environmental issues and the value of activities based on sustainability [7].
Likewise, consumer awareness has expanded, and green consumption modes that include environmental awareness in purchasing behavior are becoming increasingly popular [8].Researchers have pointed out that green restaurants have been increasing [9,10], and consumers are increasingly willing to spend more money on green restaurants [11].Green restaurants are based on environmental management, improving service quality and products [12], generating more significant social, environmental, and economic impacts with reduced environmental damage [13].
However, to classify a restaurant as a green restaurant, it is necessary to check if its activities are aligned with the sustainability dimensions.Therefore, sustainability assessment tools are essential to evaluate what kind of sustainable practices restaurants adopt and understand the activities that can be implemented to become green restaurants.Sustainability assessment tools can be powerful not only to evaluate the restaurant but also to modify restaurant behavior.Thus, worldwide, studies evaluate sustainable activities through interviews guided by sustainability assessment tools [14,15].Additionally, the literature demonstrates that establishing scores on instruments makes it possible to quantitatively estimate the outcome, interpreting the results more easily and transparently [16,17].In Brazil, Maynard et al. [18] developed and validated an instrument to assess sustainability indicators for restaurants based on various international instruments that deal with the Environmental Management System, such as ISO 14000, ISO 14001, and ISO 14,004 [19,20], and questionnaires that assess different activities in food services aiming at sustainability, such as the Sustainable Restaurant Association [21], the Green Seal [22,23], and the Green Restaurants Association [22].This checklist [18] may represent a scientifically based alternative to assist in implementing sustainable activities in food services in Portuguese-speaking countries and subsidizing the definitions and actions that encompass sustainable restaurants.It is noteworthy that there is no other instrument in the Portuguese language validated for sustainable practices to date.The evaluation of the restaurants and the need for improvements can be an opportunity for the restaurants to have a competitive advantage and profitability, as well as helping strategies to reduce the sector's impact on the environment.
Given the lack of studies on sustainability indicators in restaurants, this study aimed to build an instrument classification adopting cutoff points and classify restaurants using traffic light scores from the sustainability assessment checklist validated in Brazilian Portuguese for restaurants.

Materials and Methods
This study is cross-sectional and carried out in Brazil from February 2020 to April 2021 in a sample of 97 restaurants, including institutional, community, commercial, hospital, and school restaurants, among others, selected for convenience, in different neighborhoods of the Federal District.The inclusion criteria were to have a nutritionist as the technical responsible and agree to participate in the survey.The inclusion of food services with a nutritionist facilitated data gathering.It was also justified by the need to apply the instrument with a qualified professional and technical knowledge of the evaluated indicators.The Ethics Committee of the University of Brasília approved this study's ethical and methodological aspects (no.3.127.485).This study was performed in three phases (phase 1-application of the sustainability assessment instrument in restaurants; phase 2-developing the checklist score; phase 3-data analysis).

Phase 1-Application of the Sustainability Assessment Instrument
Researchers chose the checklist developed by Maynard et al. [18] in Portuguese to evaluate sustainable practices in restaurants.This evaluation method was chosen due to its low cost, high applicability, and accessibility, and the validated instrument was developed to the reality of the Brazilian restaurants.The instrument must be applied by a trained evaluator.Checklist items need to be checked with the nutritionists and/or employees of food services on days of the food services' routine.
The instrument has 76 items, divided into three sections (Section 1: water, energy, and gas supply; Section 2: menu and food waste; and Section 3: waste reduction, construction materials, chemicals, employees, and social sustainability).
The assessment instrument was applied in 97 restaurants by trained researchers.Each restaurant was evaluated during one day of meal production (while the food handlers performed their routine activities).The food handlers did not know the visit date previously.The visit was scheduled a week in advance with the nutritionist.All items were based on yes/no/not applicable answers, comparing sustainability activities [18].
It is important to emphasize that the answer "not applicable" was later translated to "yes" or "no", depending on its context, for the correct interpretation of the data (Supplementary file-Figure S1).

Phase 2-Development of the Checklist Score
The development of the score aims to provide an objective measurement to identify whether restaurants have sustainable measures.The checklist data from the 97 Brazilian restaurants were used to establish a classification score of restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices.The instrument score was obtained by assigning one point to each "yes" observed item.The score was obtained by section and also for the complete instrument.Values from the three sections were summed to reach percentages between 0 and 100% for the complete instrument.Therefore, the score for restaurants with low adherence to sustainable practices ranges from 0 to 40%, restaurants with average adherence to sustainable practices from 40%> to <75%, and restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices ≥ 75% of affirmative answers.The higher the checklist score, the more sustainable the restaurant is.The score was converted in traffic-light color to facilitate the classification interpretation.In this sense, restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices received the green color and were classified as green restaurants.Restaurants with average adherence to sustainable practices received the yellow color, and restaurants with low adherence to sustainable practices received the red color.
The international instruments used in the checklist construction stage [18] were checked to assist in the cutoff points adopted in this score construction process.The objective of this instrument was to evaluate the sustainability activities in restaurants that covered the three pillars of sustainability.For the restaurant to receive the sustainable designation, it needed to score in the three checklist's sections, following the same criteria for the overall assessment of the instrument.
The authors created a name for the instrument with the acronym Green Restaurant Assessment (GRASS) to add value and disseminate.Thus, a visual brand of the instrument and each classification was also created to be explored and disseminated in the visited establishments (Figure 1).Visual mark of the instrument (a) and each classification adopted (b) Restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable green seal); medium adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable yellow seal); and low adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable red seal).

Phase 3-Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics are presented as mean, standard deviation, median, and interquartile range for quantitative variables and frequencies and percentages for categorical variables.The instrument's internal consistency and sections were assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (a), at which values between 0.6 ≤ and < 0.7 are considered acceptable, 0.7 ≤ a < 0.9, good, and 0.9 ≥ a, excellent.All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS version 22.0 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

Results
For this research, 97 Brazilian restaurants of different modalities were included in the sample.The hotel restaurant modality was invited to participate, but there was no positive response for inclusion in the sample.The restaurants' classification considered the division of the checklist into three sections, with a score generated within each section and a final score of the whole checklist.The aim was to ensure that the restaurant received an assessment of good adherence to sustainable practices if its score exceeded 75% in the three sections of the checklist.Even with a total score above 75%, the restaurant will not be classified as green if it does not reach above 75% in each section.
Table 1 shows the checklist's internal consistency in terms of completeness and per section, the average score per assessed section, the total, minimum and maximum scores for each section, and the average and median.The instrument as a whole showed good internal consistency (alpha = 0.872).All three sections also had good consistencies (alpha > 0.6).The minimum checklist score in the sample of 97 restaurants was 16%, and the maximum was 81.3%, considering the total score with a mean of 44.5 (SD = 12.5) (Table 1).Table 2 shows the ranking of restaurants according to the checklist score.None of the restaurants achieved the minimum score of 75% in Section 1, which involved water, energy, and gas supply activities.Therefore, none were considered with good adherence to sustainable practices (green seal), but according to the classification, 47.4% (n = 46) of them had average adherence to sustainable practices (yellow seal).Concerning Section 2, which involves menu activities and food waste, the restaurants obtained higher scores, demonstrating that they carried out most sustainability activities.The frequency of responses observed for the 97 restaurants is presented in Table 3. Items that address immediate repair of the plumbing in the event of a leak (96.9%), check if faucets are open (90.7%), properly capped and clean water reservoir (99%), training of employees to avoid waste (89.7%), recycling cooking oil (90.7%), company furniture with durable materials (90.7%), and using diluted cleaning products (82.5%) were the most reported in this study.
On the other hand, the least reported items in Section 1 were as follows: the company has goals for the rational use of water (5.2%); the company achieves zero greenhouse gas emissions with proven partnerships (9.3%); the company has a documented program to reduce carbon emissions (4.1%); the company has documented goals to reduce the use of liquefied petroleum gas (4.1%); and the company uses biogas (1.0%).In Section 2, the items were as follows: at least 50% of the company's fruits and vegetables have organic certification (7.2%); the company uses animal products with organic certification (12.4%); and the company purchases animal products with animal welfare certification (12.4%).Finally, in Section 3, the least reported were as follows: towels or uniforms are made of organic or sustainable material (9.3%); the company uses recycled paper (12.4%); and the company purchases one or more products from a charitable foundation or social impact company (12.4%).Thus, it demonstrates the points of attention and needs for improvement in the analyzed restaurants.
It is essential to report that after applying the checklist in restaurants, item 1.17 (regarding air conditioning use) was withdrawn for providing a similar response to item 1.21, not compromising the validation of the instrument.Q3. 25 The company has a policy with the supplier or purchase specification in place that favors the acquisition of local products for foods such as dairy products, meat, fruits, and vegetables.43 44.3%Q3.26 Does the company purchase one or more products from a charitable foundation or a social enterprise that provides social impact?(For example, products made from leftover food, bread from a social enterprise bakery, etc.) 12 12.4%

Discussion
This study allowed us to develop the first validated tool for evaluating and classifying restaurants considering sustainability indicators in Brazil: Green Restaurants ASSessment (GRASS).This tool is a straightforward way to classify (for owners) and identify (for clients) the restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable green seal), restaurants with medium adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable yellow seal), and restaurants with low adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable red seal).
The adoption of traffic lights intends to easily demonstrate the relationship between the number of sustainable activities and their colors, with red being an alert sign (places need to rethink their attitudes) and the color green for those places that already carry out many sustainable activities.This model is already used in the food sector through nutritional traffic lights on labels, which allow a better understanding of the labeling information and help to guide for healthier choices [24].
Our results showed that the lack of sustainable activities in the Brazilian Federal District's restaurants is a reality.None of the 97 restaurants were classified as restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices (green seal) within the three sections.If the instrument only considered the final score of 75% independently of the sections, 2.06% of the studied sample (n = 2) would achieve a sustainable green seal classification.Thus, restaurants show low adherence to green production and consumption, even though consumers demand it [25][26][27].Due to the lack of government incentives to include sustainable activities or the lack of requirements or laws on practices that mitigate environmental damage, restaurants showed low scores in this study.
The lack of sustainable procedures was also seen in Luduvice et al. [28] study that analyzed 14 food services in Brazil.They found that activities such as selective collection, technical preparation files, purchase of organic or agroecological products, and employee training on sustainability were not carried out.Furthermore, a study [29] that evaluated the opinion of health, agriculture, and environmental professionals (n = 298) about sustainable practices in New Zealand showed that the majority (63%) reported that practices in the Food System are not sustainable.Although the consequences of unsustainable meal production activities such as increased food waste, excessive use of energy through nonrenewable sources, carbon footprint accumulation, and excessive use of plastics are numerous [30,31], few studies propose practical strategies to assess the performance of these activities by food services.
In this study, activities such as the rational use of water, reduction of greenhouse gases, and the use of organic food were little reported, demonstrating the importance of evaluating restaurants.Similar and worrying data were presented in the study by Tomio and Schmidt [32] that evaluated actions carried out by 31 restaurants concerning water sustainability.The results showed few actions about this natural resource, except the concern with economical expenditure but without any initiative in favor of resource conservation.These data reinforce the need for restaurants to think about collective actions around water since this resource is essential for the operation of companies.Concerning greenhouse gases and the purchase of organic food, some studies report that diets rich in sugars, fats, oils, and meats are the ones that most contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases and deforestation, requiring a change in eating behaviors from restaurant menus to diners' food choices so that there are not only benefits to nature, such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced deforestation, and reduced species extinction, but also improvement of the population's health and valorization of organic food [33,34] Studies reported ways that restaurants could reduce their environmental impacts without raising costs [30,35].Examples are buying local products, managing water and energy efficiently, reducing food waste, using eco-friendly cleaning products, using paper packaging in place of plastics, and training employees on sustainability topics (full use of food, energy, and water efficiency, among others).It is important to note that these items were also evaluated in this study with low achievement percentages by the restaurants' sample, except for the item that seeks to know whether restaurants monitor stock to reduce food waste, which had a high achievement percentage (89.7%).
Another fundamental strategy for food services is using renewable energies that do not harm the environment, being a socio-environmental attraction, and reducing the company's costs.In Brazil, the government and banks have created incentives for companies to set up their solar plants, reducing fees and increasing time for financing [36].In addition to the activities mentioned, food services need to carry out educational and awarenessraising activities for diners, reducing the purchase of multi-packaged food, using biodegradable chemicals, and cleaning products.
On the other hand, the items that address food waste, recycling of cooking oil, use of durable furniture, and use of diluted cleaning products were the most reported in this study, showing that they are actions carried out by companies.The awareness regarding waste seems to be improving, but the food sector still wastes a lot of the meals produced.In the study by Tomaszewska et al. [37], which created and analyzed a waste scale for the hotel sector, the authors reinforced that employees need to be more trained in food handling and that it is of paramount importance to make consumers aware of the negative impact generated by food waste.It is important to note that the mandatory score in the three sections was based on our previous study [13], which, through a systematic review, reinforces the importance that for the restaurant to be sustainable, it needs to have activities that cover the three sustainability indicators.
The data from this study resulted from the construction of the score and application of the checklist to classify sustainable practices in food services.In addition, an easy-touse and free tool is advantageous because it is more likely to be used due to its practicality.Likewise, the score interpretation is simple, which can further encourage its use by nutritionists and owners of food services.
It is important to point out that training food professionals and entrepreneurs and raising the awareness of diners to practice sustainability through the conscious and sustainable use of natural resources are valuable ways to achieve sustainability [25].
It is also noteworthy that the checklist application in food services aims to encourage them to carry out measures that were not thought of before.Restaurants face difficulties in implementing sustainable activities due to the lack of knowledge and fear of rising costs [6].In this context, the checklist and the classification score represent a viable way to recognize the food service as environmentally friendly or green.
This study presented some limitations, as it was not applied in all types of restaurants.Additionally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurants' closures difficulted the data collection in a higher number of restaurants.

Conclusions
This study first developed a validated tool for evaluating and classifying restaurants considering sustainability indicators in Brazil.The Green Restaurants ASSessment (GRASS) tool is a straightforward way to classify and identify the restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices (green seal), restaurants with medium adherence to sustainable practices (yellow seal), and restaurants with low adherence to sustainable practices (red seal).The traffic lights are used to demonstrate the sustainable activities carried out in restaurants using the colors.Our results showed the lack of sustainable activities in the Brazilian Federal District's restaurants, reinforcing the importance of covering the three sustainability indicators.We hope that the construction and validation of the checklist and its score's determination have contributed to broadening the discussions on sustainability in food services and serve as a starting point for future research.Strategies like these are fundamental to improve the understanding of the subject and to expand the knowledge of nutritionists who deal directly with this economic sector.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Visual mark of the instrument (a) and each classification adopted (b) Restaurants with good adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable green seal); medium adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable yellow seal); and low adherence to sustainable practices (sustainable red seal).

Table 1 .
Average score, IQR, minimum and maximum values, and Cronbach's alpha of the evaluation of the restaurants through the sustainability activities checklist (n = 97).

Table 2 .
Percentage classification of the overall score and the sections of the evaluated restaurants (n = 97).

Table 3 .
Frequency and percentage of performed items per checklist section among the evaluated food services (n = 97).