CDT Fall 2022 - 13

By Mark Buckley
Vice President of
Sustainability at The
ISH™ Food Company
When I attended college in the mid '70s,
dining options were very, very limited.
Choices were limited to a primary protein,
a few veggies, maybe a fruit choice (e.g.,
apple, banana, or orange), and a sugary
dessert with an option of a milk, juice
or soda to drink. Today, the myriad of
options for students are endless. Food
choices and dining are as important to
attracting high-quality students to attend
an institution as world-class faculty,
dorms and athletic facilities. However,
did you know that mild mannered dining
directors are campus climate
and sustainability superheroes?
Collegiate dining directors and
procurement teams make decisions
every day that contribute to helping
their institutions meet their sustainability
goals and are critical contributors to
The Association for the Advancement
of Sustainability in Higher Education's
(AASHE) Sustainability Tracking,
Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS®)
and Second Nature Climate commitments.
We certainly think of the operational
footprint associated with running campus
dining facilities, energy, water, waste,
and packaging as important-and they
are. However, did you know that menu
choices and ingredient supply chains
can represent more than 75 percent of
emissions associated with dining services?
According to the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (UN
FAO), food systems account for more than
30 percent of GHG global emissions (in
excess of 16.5 billion tonnes/year)1
.
CAMPUS DINING DECISION MAKERS CAN BE CLIMATE CHANGE SUPERHEROES | CAMPUS DINING TODAY
13
Today more than half of American
consumers are open to incorporating more
plant-based foods into their diets2
. What
does this shift mean for you and your
menu options? What does it mean for your
campus sustainability commitments for
AASHE STARS® and Second Nature? We
need to find ways to upend the food system
and feed an anticipated 10 billion people on
planet Earth healthy, nutritious food without
converting more land to agriculture. This will
mean creating not just a more sustainable,
but a regenerative, agricultural system.
" Plant forward " meals, particularly those
containing alternative proteins, are key to
this transition. For example, producing beef
uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times
the greenhouse gasses as producing beans,
per gram of protein.3
A 2022 National Institutes of Health
(NIH) study suggests that 85.2 percent
of college students are willing to try
more plant-based meat and believe that
increased consumption of plant-based meat
can positively impact the environment.
Expanding information availability
through social marketing campaigns to
increase knowledge and interest in plantbased
meals could help promote greater
consumption, better health and greater
environmental protection.4
College and
university campuses are well-suited to
getting this message out.
What should you consider when making
menu choices for alternative proteins for
your students and how can you make the
right choices? Only 14 percent of college
CDT Fall 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CDT Fall 2022
