With the increasing affluent of the general population in couple of the changing lifestyle of customers, the number of restaurants has been significantly increased to capture this enormous business opportunity. Though the restaurant business looks promising, many restaurant managers/owners face the challenge of greening their restaurants in the calls of sustainable living and to lower the carbon footprint. There is unfortunately lack of a consensus among practitioners of what constitutes a green restaurant. Are the practices of green restaurant identical to environmental protections such as pollution prevention, energy efficiency, and water conservation? Even in the literature, it appeared not much of research on green restaurant practices. The domain and structure of green practices in restaurant remain unclear that leave practitioners a limited guidance in greening their restaurants. A knowledge gap is existed to be filled by this research in seeking definitely answers of the components of green restaurant practices as well as its causes and effects.

An online survey was self-administered to restaurant managers and owners of chain restaurants and independent food shops in Hong Kong. A total of 169 valid responses were collected to form a representative sample for hypothesis testing. Using structural equation modeling, the structure of Green Restaurant Practices (GRPs) was empirically confirmed with three distinct yet related factors to fully operationalize it as a construct. These factors are Green Food, Green Equipment, and Green Management. Furthermore, the individual paths of Green Attitude, Green Capability, and Social Influence were all significant to predict Green Restaurant Practices that lead to stronger competitiveness and higher customer satisfaction of the restaurant.

Results of this research study demonstrated the new substances in Green Restaurant Practices and placed this concept in a large theoretical network with known antecedents and consequences. As part of the contributions, researchers can adopt the measurement model of Green Restaurant Practices to further investigate the sustainability issue in the sector of hotel, restaurant, and café. In terms of the implication to practice, restaurateurs are informed by this research on how they should plan and implement green strategy in restaurant to increase competitiveness and secure a higher customer satisfaction. All in all, this study paved ways for further research on green restaurant and justified efforts on greening a restaurant.