The Energy Saving Trust has just launched research about the environmental habits of 11 countries across Europe. The findings make interesting reading, but as my focus is on France, I couldn’t help but raise any eyebrow when reading the following bullet point tucked away in the text:

• Twenty-one per cent of Frenchmen and women spend more than 10 minutes a week waiting for their food to arrive in a restaurant.

What a strange statistic to use in a report on energy saving.

Why was France the only country to have its restaurant habits highlighted and is waiting 10 minutes for a restaurant meal not normal?

Perhaps the hidden meaning here is that our French friends spend more time eating out than the rest of Europe, at least in restaurants where the food isn’t fast.

And after spending the last few days enjoying meals in family-run restaurants in-and-around La Palmyre in Charente Maritime, I can’t say I blame them.

Inspired by the report, I took a look at the number of people opting into siblu’s own carbon offset scheme, which has been available to holidaymakers in both the UK and France for the past two years.

In 2007 the people taking part were overwhelmingly British, but this year the ratio has been much closer to 50:50, which suggests Energy Saving in France is gathering momentum.

Something to mull over when waiting for your next restaurant meal!

Tags: energy, environment, France, restaurants, saving

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under General, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.