Middlebury College and Green Dining

As one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges, Middlebury College has a (comparatively) long history of sustainable development practices. It also boasts "the oldest undergraduate environmental studies program in the country." DailyGreen ranks Middlebury as number five among the top "green" colleges in the States. The school's commitment to sustainability is evident by many of its green dining practices.

With an emphasis on using local foods, Middlebury College contributes to the economy by sourcing food from 47 Vermont food producers. 25% of food at the college is from local sources including the school's student-run organic garden. Since its introduction in 2003, the organic garden has grown to 3-acres, where students and interns volunteer and grow a combination of fruits and vegetables. To make getting to the garden easier for students, there is a walking/biking path from the campus to the garden, which is located about a half-mile away from campus (which encourages students to consider alternative transportation as well).

To encourage broad student involvement and support for the garden, weekly meetings are offered during the school year providing information about the school's garden and general farming practices. In addition, the school holds a weekly "farmstand" in September and October, where students can buy fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the garden.

According to its website, "food waste comprises upwards of 70% of the municipal solid waste stream." Middlebury College is a leader in food composting and composts 300 tons of food each year. "Food prep scraps, postconsumer food residuals, waxed cardboard, paper towels, napkins and food prep waste paper -- some 70% of the College's food waste--is composted. Plate waste (post consumer food residuals) is run through a pulper to remove excess water." (http://www.middlebury.edu/sustainability/food/dining/waste ).

For large events, paper products and biodegradable trash bag liners are used which in turn go "directly into the college's composting system instead of the landfill". When possible, the college's dining services also make an effort to use silverware instead of paper products. The website states that roughly "90 percent of waste from large events is composted".

Another exciting way the college employs green dining is by turning food waste into biodiesel. "The Nordic Ski Team partners with Dining Services to use waste vegetable oil to fuel their biodiesel truck".

Finally, the college belongs to the Terra Madre slow food network, a global network of 100,000 members committed to sustaining local farming methods and environments. The Terra Madre network grew out of the "Slow Food Movement" founded by Carlo Petrini in 1989, to counter the spread of fast food restaurants and chains.

It is clear that Middlebury College is a leader of sustainable practices in "green" dining among academic institutions. The school's commitment to providing information, education and opportunities for engagement to students and others that are interested in learning more, is most obvious by the added fact that the college's homepage includes a "sustainability" link.

As a small school with a large endowment, it is not surprising that Middlebury is able to implement these initiatives, many of which most likely require huge initial investments, but the fact that the college has chosen to use its financial and human resources to bolster sustainable practices on campus is inspiring.

DePaul University has implemented many of the same initiatives as Middlebury on campus by working with its local food provider, Chartwell's. The university might also consider building an on-site composting area as well as working with lcoal neighborhoods/community organizations to build and maintain an organic garden. The food could be used on campus and if sold, proceeds could go to either expanding sustainable development initiatives on campus or donated to local chairities/food pantries. Finally, DePaul should better highlight its sustainable initiatives on the website and consider adding a direct link on the homepage.

Submitted by: Julie Felix

Photo: Bing clip art

Sustainable Food: What DePaul Should Do

College students often eat two or more meals a day on campus. Over the course of a year this is a lot of food that DePaul purchases and sells to students. DePaul has an opportunity to offer students locally bought food from farms around Illinois and help create a sustainable food service system.

While DePaul University does have some food and recycling sustainability practices, I feel that this is an area that they could improve in and not only impact and sustain the local community but the health of the DePaul students. DePaul currently has no formal policies on purchasing local food, but does have initiatives to encourage units to buy locally grown produce when available. DePaul buys from 17 local farms and spends $68,046 of their $3 million budget on locally raised food. While this may seem impressive, when compared to a school like Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio who spends $1,260,00 out of their $3 million budget on locally raised food, there is a lot of room for improvement.

DePaul does have an area on their dining services website that people can view their sustainability practices and what foods they use that are locally grown and bought. While these practices are having an impact there is more that can be done and Oberlin College, while not as large as DePaul, sets a great example through their sustainability practices.

Oberlin College has formal policies around the purchase of sustainable and organic food. They state that their principle is to “purchase, prepare and dispose all food and products in the most sustainable, socially and fiscally responsible manner possible.” I think this is a great first step when moving towards a more sustainable food service system and DePaul would benefit greatly when setting up something like this. By taking the initiative to purchase local and sustainable food, DePaul is encouraging students to do this in their personal lives and pass this on to their family and friends, not to mention the benefits of supporting the local economy and farmers. This can create a ripple effect throughout communities of people.

Oberlin College received an A- grade from the College Sustainability Report Card 2010. Oberlin College purchases from 9 local farmers or growers directly and 16 through a distributor which they call the Farm to Fork Program. They purchase things such as honey, maple syrup, grass-fed beer, and naturally raised turkey, dairy among other things. Oberlin also runs their own school farm to provide food to students and also give them an opportunity to work in the farm and learn more about the choices we make in regard to food sustainability. While this may be hard for DePaul due to the urban area that surrounds it, there might be a possibility to buy a plot of land in a nearby suburb or a plot of unused land near the school. Oberlin’s dining services employees, all 71 of them, have adopted the core values of sustainability and encourage others to do so as well. As they say “practice what you preach.”

Not only does Oberlin College have a food service sustainability program they also have a responsible disposables and composting program. The responsible disposable program encourages the use of china and silverware in the cafes. When it isn’t possible to use china or silverware they use products from renewable sources like corn, sugarcane and potato starch. To reduce the impact on the environment, they compost any biodegradable disposables and collect kitchen waste and customers food to be used as compost in George Jones Memorial Farm. Composting is something that can be done for free and in your own backyard. By encouraging students to compost in college it will encourage them to bring these practices with them in the future.

The University of Minnesota also set a great example with their food service program. They have received an A- from the College Green Report Card 2010. They use concepts similar to Oberlin college but on a larger scale. They support over 12 local farms and encourage everyone working for their dining service to promote the local food initiative.

Oberlin College and The University of Minnesota set an exemplary example when it comes to sustainability throughout their colleges and especially in their food service department. What I have highlighted above is only a few of the initiatives that they have put in place. DePaul can look to this model as they try to create a more sustainable university that supports the local community and the health of the students they educate. The food service sustainability program can be taken into the classroom and taught in classes involving food policy, development, economics and agriculture. As mentioned in the paper International Implementation Scheme “education is held to be central to sustainability.”

Here are some additional resources on sustainable food:
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/recycle.htm
http://sustainableagriculture.net/
http://attra.ncat.org/organic.html 
http://food.change.org/ 

Posted by Julia Jolliff

Photo credit Energy Bulletin 

Student Sustainable Farming at De Paul University?

The concept of student farming would reasonably conjure up images of rural, agricultural schools training the future farmers of America. A new trend, however, has emerged at universities across the United States, including private, state and Ivy League institutions. With programs at many schools, including Rutgers, Cornell and Yale, this new trend, called student sustainable farming, is no longer just for agricultural students. More than forty on-campus student farms exist today. Students who attend universities with robust international and study-abroad programs, such as DePaul, can benefit from the experience provided by sustainable farming projects. Students who are preparing for study-abroad programs in developing countries in Africa, South American and Asia could bring more practical insight to their programs through the experience of participating in sustainable farming.

Sustainable farming has been used on campuses to establish community supported agriculture (CSA), farm stands, provide fresh produce to dining halls, and assist local soup kitchens and food pantries with their growing demand. The University of Vermont, for example, donates about half of its crop to local food aid projects. Student farms range in size and can be as large as 200 acres, although many are as small as an acre or less. It is true that many of these farms are linked to college courses related to agriculture, however, many are also linked to courses in global food politics and sustainability. As students learn ecological, economic, and social skills through cultivating crops, marketing products and supporting community development, they become engrossed in the educational and community service principles such as those held at DePaul University.

In many cases, student farms are self-sustained through their CSA initiatives and may even be organized as non-profit entities, allowing them to secure government grants to offset start-up costs. Farms at DePaul could use food scraps from dining halls and campus leaves for compost materials and supply food back to dining halls at harvest time. While the program at DePaul would start small, the opportunity for growth is exponential. For example, the Center for Agro-ecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at the University of California at Santa Cruz operates a two-acre farm and is a great example of how universities can create outreach programs that not only benefit research and education on campus, but also can increase public interest in sustainable, resource-conserving agricultural techniques. The CASFS collaborates with non-governmental organizations, its local community and government agencies to provide publications and workshops for not only professional curriculum, but also for school children.

DePaul’s urban location, complemented by suburban campuses, provides an ideal atmosphere for this initiative. Other urban universities that are setting the bar include American, Georgetown and George Washington Universities in Washington, D.C., which started student gardens in 2009 and donated food to local food banks. Even universities closer to home, like Northwestern University's student garden, recognize the benefits of student gardens and have taken the first step in giving their students hands-on experience in sustainable gardening. These schools are proving that making a difference does not have to take up a lot of space. As each of these schools have demonstrated, raised beds can be put virtually anywhere and DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus could certainly accommodate this.

There is little doubt that student sustainable farming is a great opportunity for DePaul University. Shares in CSA initiatives could include distribution to low-income community members, as is done at Rutgers University, keeping with the values of St. Vincent de Paul. Additional benefits include more efficient use of university land resources to provide practical solutions for public service and sustainable education initiatives. The university’s connection to the community could only be strengthened while providing experiential learning to students preparing for careers in business, public service, international studies or various other concentrations. Many schools, from small liberal art colleges to Ivy League universities, have successfully developed student farm programs. Now is the time for DePaul to be a pioneer in the Chicago area with its own student sustainable farming initiative.

Posted by: Sondra Elder
(photo courtesy of Matt Steiman and Inno Onwueme)

Sustainable Dining at DePaul: Food and Facilities

Food is something we all see smell and taste every day. Because of the ubiquity, or perhaps growing up with a health food store named after me, the sustainability of growing and consuming food has been a long time interest of mine. There are so many facets beyond health and nutrition: cultural, economic, historic, and environmental factors to name a few. As an introduction to the topic of campus dining sustainability, the first websites that I wanted to read were the ones that offered a rating or report card. The Sierra Club gave a 5/10 ranking of food, about in the middle range of the issues ranked, with an overall grade of D. The College Sustainability Report Card had food and recycling as the highest ranked category of all, B, with an overall score of D+. So overall, the food and dining at Depaul is ranking ahead of many of the other areas graded on these two reports,Sustainability Report Card and Sierra Club.


The College Sustainability Report Card was based on a more detailed study as this was the one part of the grade that was based on a survey conducted with DePaul dining staff.

Dining hall sustainability falls into many categories: local food, organic food, “natural” food (hormone-free), sustainable food (fishing guidelines), fair trade and non-food consumables (trays, utensils). The statistics I found most interesting and inspiring was the amount of money DePaul spent on sustainable food, $68,046 on locally produced food, $234,335 on locally processed, and $41,007 on organic food from the total budget of $3,985,997. Yes this is shy of 9%, so may not seem near large enough, but this is not including all of those other sustainable practices, fair trade, cage free eggs or sustainable caught fish. So if close to 10 percent of the food consumed in DePaul, is in some way more sustainable than the average food found in the Jewel, this is progress and deserving of our good rankings. The survey, completed by the Director of Dining, may speak more to the corporate sustainability of the contractor, The Compass Group, which owns Chartwells, the campus food service provider. Looking at Chartwells’ sustainability page, they seem to focus more on the waste reduction, composting, recycling and reducing waste, but less on the nature of the food goods themselves. They do have a section talking about the vegetarian options, and a short mention of their sustainable food emphasis but not as explicitly as I was expecting given the local wave of local and sustainable food books, movies and media in the past few years.

DePaul does give Chartwells credit for their green practices, ”DePaul's food service provider, Chartwells, is active in sustainable practices throughout the entire food operation. Thirty percent of meals in the dining halls are vegetarian options; 15 percent of food expenses are devoted to local or organic products.” When an institution is as large as DePaul choosing a contractor that shares similar philosophies and values is probably the most efficient way to reach their sustainability goals.

Locally grown and processed foods reduce transportation costs and emissions and add to the local economy. Organically and naturally grown foods reduce the amount of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals entering our soils and running into our waterways. Becoming a more local and organic food chain is certainly not going to fix all of the problems in America with food and farming. But the college dining hall, a place where many students are making all their own food choices for the first time in their lives, is an excellent place to inspire food awareness. In the few dining facilities I have been to since coming to DePaul, one thing I have found lacking is better signage and labeling of the goods. If there were signs showing the foods that came from local farms, or are organic, or if I knew 98% of the fish was listed on the sustainable fish list, I may make different choices. Assuming that with more students aware and choosing these choices, that will lead to more demand and increased amounts of money spent on sustainable products would increase.

By Rebecca Dill
Photo: gapersblock.com, Green Acre Produce, a DePaul food supplier, at Chicago’s Green City market