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With the food system driving 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the time for change is now. Sweetgreen announced its new sustainability commitment to go carbon neutral in six years. Commissioning climate firm Watershed to assess its suppliers and calculate the footprint of its ingredients, Sweetgreen says that it’ll “introduce even more plant-powered salads and soil-friendly ingredients”, listing regenerative kelp and sorghum as some of the new items customers can expect to see in future menu rosters. Sweetgreen says that it plans to slash its carbon footprint to zero by 2027, half of which will come from sustainable sourcing decisions and plant-forward menu development. Describing the commitment as the “right thing to do”, the popular healthy go-to salad spot says that it will be increasing its range of plant-powered options and introducing new sustainably grown ingredients to its menu. "Not salad."Īlexander Si’s Sweetgreen installation is open through Sunday at the Chinatown Soup gallery.Sweetgreen, the American fast casual salad chain, is the latest food establishment to hop on the sustainability bandwagon, pledging to become carbon neutral within the next six years. And restaurants and bars selling alcohol changes the neighborhood's sidewalk experience and rent structure, according to Lee. A corporate health-food chain that doesn't catch on within the community will eventually fail and leave, Lee said, but there will always be consumers for alcohol. What's really disrupting Chinatown right now, in Lee's view, is the proliferation of liquor licenses as other neighborhoods become more restrictive about them. "We have had a proliferation of really big corporate entities from overseas coming into Chinatown and across New York that have overtaken similar mom and pop businesses," Lee said. In his view, it’s easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on “white American businesses” coming into communities of color as a sign of gentrification. “Who’s being gentrifier and who’s being gentrified?" he said.īut Jan Lee, 56, a third-generation Chinatown resident and community activist, said the installation may have missed the mark.
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He hopes aggrieved residents would stop and think about the cost of their moving into this neighborhood as the next hip place. "They still think that this is invading their neighborhood in some way. “People were like, ‘This is so upsetting, I’m going to create a neighborhood community text group to protest this,’" Si said.
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The most interesting reaction he received, he said, was pushback from residents who thought his installation was a real Sweetgreen. He hopes that his installation raises questions about the effects of corporate chains entering micro-neighborhoods like Dimes Square. It's named after a nearby restaurant, Dimes, and the area has become increasingly whiter and richer over the last two years during the pandemic, Si explained.
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The surrounding area is known as “Dimes Square,” a small triangle between the intersection of Canal and Division streets in the eastern part of Chinatown. The gallery hosting Si’s installation is in a part of Chinatown that some say has become gentrified. “It’s, in a way, a metaphor of the actual employees and how they are treated, and the burnout they face as blue-collar service industry workers under this big umbrella brand,” Si said. On the opening day, Si hired five performers to dress up as Sweetgreen employees, with a manager yelling “sweet” and a group of employees yelling back “green” in an effort to garner enthusiasm in a corporate work environment. Through the hard labor he put into creating the exact replica by hand in less than a week, Si said he hopes people who visit his installation think twice about the invisible labor force behind large corporate chain stores. The familiar "sg" logo displayed outside the gallery has lured in many residents and tourists who were hoping to buy salad bowls. His most recent work is a life-size facsimile of a Sweetgreen franchise, including a replica of the eatery’s stylish online order pickup shelf and seating area with a video of a real Sweetgreen embedded in the seats, at the downtown art gallery Chinatown Soup.