From fine dining options to coffee shops and retail, Oklahoma City’s sustainability game is on point and growing all the time. The City of Oklahoma City officially launched its Sustainability Office in 2009 and drafted and passed its first city-wide sustainability plan in 2020. Local businesses, including coffee shops, fine dining, retail, spas and more have embraced sustainable business models, and we are here for it.
Sustainability refers to doing business without negatively impacting the environment, community or society as a whole – kind of the gold standard for doing business.
Ludivine fits the sustainability bill because it sources most of its dairy, produce, eggs and meat locally. That means goods are transported shorter distances, reducing transit-related carbon emissions. Food loses nutrients as it travels, so Ludivine’s diners will enjoy produce at its prettiest, most-nutritious peak. Plus, dining at Ludivine is a wonderfully decadent treat.
Oklahoma City’s robust coffee scene may come as a surprise to visitors. Our coffee shop game is strong, and our sustainable coffee shop game is, too. Clarity Coffee sources and roasts all of its coffee itself, which means they make sure that the entire supply chain involved can make a living wage. If you’re looking for a bag of coffee for home use, bring your own container and Clarity will knock three dollars off the price. Holey Rollers, a coffee and donut/pastry shop in the Paseo District offers only gluten free, vegan goodies, made from scratch with no artificial dyes or sweeteners. To-go containers are compostable. They do offer traditional dairy for coffee, sourced locally. Food scraps are composted, and old cooking oil is the fuel for the Holey Rollers food truck. Elemental Coffee, a small-batch roastery and locally-sourced café, recently launched a no single-use to-go policy, and now offers to-go beverages in cute, rentable, reusable jars if you forget to bring your own to-go cup.
Local Lather has two OKC locations: The Refillery in the Plaza District and The Lab in the Western Avenue District. In addition to dreamy handmade soaps and cleaning products, you’ll also find colorful wrapped, washable cleaning cloths on a dispenser that substitute for paper towels, dryer balls (in lieu of dryer sheets), eco-friendly bamboo-handled toothbrushes, utensils made of wheat straw plastic and all kinds of lovely items that you’ll love – and so will Mother Earth.
Plenty Mercantile offers sustainability in the form of ethically and sustainably-sourced products like gifts, homewares, books, kids’ toys, bulk items, cleaning supplies, body care, gorgeous candles and fun things you didn’t know you needed!
Shop Good is a charity-driven T-shirt shop. They only work with ethical suppliers and certified factories, organic fibers and water-based inks. You’ll love the clever designs and happy shop filled with T-shirts, sweatshirts, gift items, jewelry, toys, kitchen and bath supplies and accessories.
One of the more unique, win-win sustainable services, the Downtown OKC Green Team, is a clean and safe program for the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) launched in March 2022. One of its key responsibilities is providing supplemental cleaning and safety services within the six downtown districts of the BID. The program’s core services include trash and litter removal, street vacuuming, power washing, sticker and graffiti removal in addition to special event information, business check-ins and hospitality escorts.
