Campus Dining Today - NACUFS 2023 - 26

GRAND PRIZE:
University of Michigan
CARBON EMISSIONS ICONS
Michigan Dining (MDining), in collaboration with researchers
and other groups at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, developed traffic-light style carbon menu icons
for placement alongside dishes in dining halls to indicate
the carbon footprint of a dish to diners. researchers within
the coalition predicted that exposure to carbon menu icons
would decrease demand for high-carbon dishes by educating
consumers about the environmental impact of their food
choices, reducing their carbon footprint without taking away
choices, options, or economic incentives. One impact of this
research-based program was educating individuals on the
impact of their food choices. Additionally, the data showed
fewer people selected menu items with higher carbon
values in at least one of the dining halls, leading MDining to
institute the program more broadly. The approach was both
innovative and creative, allowing researchers to add to the
literary research on this topic while working collaboratively
with dining staff.
Since 2019, MDining has worked to measure the carbon value
of its entire menu in accordance with a long-term campus
goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2035. Students in the
Undergraduate research Opportunity Program (UrOP)
collaborated with MDining in 2019, using a carbon calculator
designed by Dr. Martin Heller to identify opportunities for
carbon reduction. The President's Commission on Carbon
Neutrality (PCCN) that year also implemented an internal
group tasked with analyzing opportunities for carbon
emission reductions from food operations on campus.
Final recommendations were published by the PCCN in
2021, including the development of the Carbon Neutrality
Accelerated Program (CNAP) to conduct additional research.
The CNAP team, made up of professors from the original
PCCN food-focused group and funded by the Graham
Sustainability Institute, researched how psychological nudges
and choice architecture could modify diner behaviors to
decrease carbon emissions.
As a result, the marketing department developed the trafficlight
style icons that were placed on all menus (website,
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CAMPUS DINING TODAY | SUSTAINABILITY AWArDS
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reTUrN TO TABLe OF CONTeNTS
mobile app and digital signs at the entrances to dining
halls). The red icon indicated high carbon emissions for the
dish, such as red-meat dishes, the yellow icon indicated
medium carbon emissions like poultry or dairy, and the
green icon indicated a low-carbon dish such as plantbased
dishes. The marketing team also developed " table
talkers " that guests could read while dining that included
information about carbon labeling, and banners were
placed within each dining hall to further reinforce the
messaging. All these initiatives were implemented during
the test period, which took place in the winter semester of
2022. There were three intervention dining halls in which
the carbon labels were implemented and three control
dining halls where the labels were not present, paired by
diner traffic numbers to establish a way to compare data
points.
The carbon labeling initiative had a positive overall impact
on the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.
According to CNAP project lead Dr. Andrew Jones, School
of Public Health, University of Michigan, preliminary
analyses of the two largest dining halls indicate there was
a 38 percent reduction in high-greenhouse gas emission
(GHGe) dishes at the intervention dining hall relative to
the control dining hall. However, statistically significant
differences in the service of high-GHGe emission dishes
were not observed for the other two dining hall pairs.
Therefore, menu icons may dissuade young adults from
selecting high-GHGe items within all-you-care-to-eat U.S.
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