Emily Jubenvill is a senior editor & campaign manager at 3rdwhale.com, and an avid green activist in Vancouver. She recently decided that because she loved sushi, getting a local restaurant to somehow highlight the best sustainable choices for sushi was a major goal for her.

(To learn more about sustainable sushi, take a look at here.)

Following the San Francisco-based Carrotmob, which “organizes consumers to purchase goods from producers that socially beneficial choice”, she decided to call her group a ‘podmob’. She started visiting all the sushi restaurants in the West End Vancouver neighborhood. She visited 15 restaurants, but unfortunately, very few had heard anything about ‘sustainable sushi‘. However, they all were at least intrigued by the idea of a mob of customers showing up on a scheduled day - November 20 - ready and willing to eat a lot of sushi. And of course, paying for what they eat!

Sushi Bento Express on Robson Street in Vancouver’s West End won the podmob challenge by pledging to commit 31 percent of its day’s profits toward adopting a ‘avoid’, ‘good alternative’, ‘best choice’ rating system for their sushi dishes. Jubenvill also asked the restaurant to use the 31 percent of the day’s take to green operations in some other ways, such as energy efficiency, waste management, water conservation and greener purchasing methods.

What happened to Sushi Bento Express? An 85% growth in revenues on the night of the podmob, obtained by approximately 100 West End residents keeping the restaurant busy all night. They now offer their sustainable sushi menu all time. Now their menus will have some green, yellow and red circles to show which are the yes, go slow, and no choices in susi. And we need to mention that they generously raised their contribution from that day’s revenue to 33%.

See also:

• The Green Table Network
• The Seafood Watch Sustainable Sushi Guide

• Enviro. group lures restaurants toward ’sustainable sushi’ – CBC News