Sustainability may ultimately be about saving the global environment for our children and grandchildren, but that doesn’t play with many business types. You can bet they’ll sit up and give you their full attention, however, if you tell them you can cut expenses by thousands of dollars without layoffs and austerity measures.

Completely leave out talk of “sustainability” and instead talk about reducing energy and water costs. Yes, we all know that’s a big part of becoming more sustainable, but sometimes it’s all in the language. And there are a number of resources that can help you accomplish that goal with measurable results for your company or school.

The Food Service Technology Center (FSTC), based in San Ramon, Calif., is the preeminent authority on energy and water conservation, and they put a wealth of tools and tips at your fingertips on their Web site at www.fishnick.com. Richard Young, senior engineer and director of education, says, “The first order of business in sustainability is to make sure your business is financially sustainable, and saving energy and water serves both goals.” Here are a few tips you can use today to get you started.

1. Do your own energy audit. FSTC has a do-it-yourself Site Survey Checklist ready for download. This makes an excellent class exercise. Students love to use their critical eye to see how many areas for improvement they can find. You may also want to contact your local utility and see if they’ll do an audit for you, as well.
    
2. Make an action plan. Evaluate the results of the two energy audits and begin to develop an action plan. Focus first on easy fixes that cost little, but yield tremendous dividends.
    
3. Quick Water Savers. Something as simple as a slow drip from a faucet can waste tens of thousands of gallons of water each year. Often those leaks are on the hot water side so you’re also paying to heat the wasted water. Replacing a washer costs only pennies and can easily save a couple thousand dollars a year. Other quick water- and energy-saving fixes include:
   • Install low-flow, pre-rinse spray valves at your dishwashing stations. Use FSTC’s online water calculator to see what kind of savings you can expect.
   • Insulate all accessible hot-water lines, which can save you about $4 to $5 per year per lineal foot of insulated pipe.
   • Put your ice machine on a timer and set it so you only make ice at night, when energy costs are lower
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4. Easy Energy Savers. Like water, there are so many small actions that will yield big savings; many only require a small investment or better attention to maintenance.
   • Clean condenser and evaporator coils on refrigeration units—so simple, yet so often neglected because they’re hidden from view.
   • Replace worn gaskets and make sure doors are properly aligned and door closers are working properly. Remember, you’re paying to cool the warm kitchen air that is sneaking into your refrigerators—so stop those leaks.
   • Invest a little to save a lot. Consider replacing incandescent lighting (your regular old-school light bulbs) with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Light quality has greatly improved over earlier generations, and they will pay for themselves both in energy savings and longevity.
   • Go to the FSTC Web site for more energy-saving tips and how-to instructions.
      
5. Utilize FSTC’s Energy Efficient Kitchen Tool. In a virtual kitchen, students can explore how different actions can change energy costs. The potential for hands-on learning is excellent and students will be amazed at the money that can be saved with changes both large and small.
    
6. Track your energy and water usage. This is undoubtedly the most important step. Start with current usage as a baseline and join with students in tracking your progress; make it a contest to see how much you can improve month to month. Watch for anomalies, which can raise a flag that there may be a problem that is costing you money. Go back to the energy audit and nip the problem in the bud. For fun, calculate how much the problem could have cost you over the course of a year if it wasn’t remedied.
    
7. Report your results to C-level executives. Nothing makes your case more strongly than dollars-and-cents savings. When you want to implement your next changes they’ll be on your side.

Finally, experience shows that once a company starts down the path to sustainability (even if they don’t call it that), they don’t go back to their old ways. Rather a new decision-making paradigm develops that looks at actions in a broader perspective—one that looks at long-range costs and benefits. When it comes to big purchases like kitchen equipment, a few hundred dollars of extra cost upfront can save thousands on the backend. The same goes for renovations and new builds. It’s a valuable lesson that students will carry with them as they change our world.

Christopher Koetke is dean of The Culinary School at Kendall College, Chicago, which sponsors CAFÉ’s annual Green Award for culinary-arts programs.