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Addressing Food Waste at University College Dublin, Ireland (2023 Sep)

At a glance

  • Two students undertook this as their final year project for the BSc in Human Nutrition at UCD and two students were working as work placement interns with the clinical nutrition and dietetics team at the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sports Science.

Background:

Food waste is a global issue which carries many environmental and economic implications. An estimated 25-33%, or 1.3 billion tonnes, of food is wasted globally (1). The UN SDG of halving food waste by 2030 requires large scale action. Action in Ireland is guided by European directives to monitor and reduce food waste in line with the UN SDG goals (2).

Universities are settings with large populations and diverse expertise that could address food waste in meaningful and innovate ways. The student and staff population at UCD is over 30,000 with over 4000 beds provided for student residences on-campus. There are several large restaurants, numerous cafes and delis, coffee docks, 2 grocery shops, and other small vendors across the campus. Novel food vans park up once per week and during events or festivals. There are 4 main providers of catering to events and conferences across the campus. In short, UCD is akin to a large, bustling town with a food system to match.

UCD Estate services already has several supporting policies and programmes in place for sustainability. (3) UCD seeks the attainment of a sustainable, healthy and living campus and as such endeavours to manage the campus in a way that considers energy and water usage, waste management, sustainable commuting and biodiversity in all of its activities where relevant.

For students, there are opportunities to explore different aspects of the university food environment for the purpose of learning about food systems, waste, and what it all means for sustainability. To obtain a snapshot of the university campus, students focused on:

  • Food waste practices within a large university restaurant setting
  • Food waste knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours among students in residence on campus
  • Food waste within one staff building – the waste was collected, the students explored different methods of composting, and organised a living soil and composting workshop open to staff and students in collaboration with the community garden at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Lessons Learnt:

  • A pilot exploratory project helped to build diverse relationships across campus including with restaurant management, Green Campus, the community garden, food waste and sustainability researchers and initiate conversations about this topic.
  • Small projects can attract interested staff and students and support the sustainability of actions with willing volunteers (e.g. continuing composting).
  • Accessing students to complete a survey was challenging and on-campus residence initiatives to engage students will require additional time and creativity.
  • The most wasted food group in a large university restaurant was starches, followed by vegetables. Plate waste, rather than kitchen waste, were the focus of the study, therefore server and consumer level engagement around portions sizes and waste awareness may be the appropriate focus for intervention.
  • The team in nutrition and dietetics at UCD collaborate with Airfield Farm Estate, where they demonstrate opportunities for full composting of food waste on-site, creating valuable compost and fertiliser for their garden and food growing.
  • The study is being developed further (in 2023/2024) to engage more with students’ knowledge and attitudes and repeat the restaurant methods to obtain a full academic year snapshot.

What Else? Other Relevant Examples

Food for Thought
Educators and Students seem the ideal role models for reducing food waste.
What systems need to be in place to avoid waste?
What supports do universities need to reduce food waste?

Contact Information
Sarah Browne, sarah.browne1@ucd.ie

References:

1 – International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction 29 September

2 – Irish National Food Waste Prevention Roadmap 2023-2025 From Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Published on 30 November 2022, Last updated on 30 January 2023 )

3 – Summary of UCD Sustainability Activities via Estates

Red-Listed Seafood (2023 Aug)

At a Glance

  • Madalyn Higgins, RD, the Dietitian and Sustainability Manager at Acadia Dining Services (provided by Chartwell’s Canada) worked with the students in NUTR 4913 Sustainable Food Systems and Dietary Patterns to address this target, providing them with a meaningful experiential learning opportunity. The students were all studying to become nutrition or health professionals, at least half of them intended on a career in dietetics.
The efforts of the students focused on three areas:
  • Understanding and communicating key messages about sustainable seafood.  Students put together a comprehensive review of existing research surrounding the topic and created communications tools to be displayed in the dining hall to inform staff and students about the negative effects of Red-Listed seafood and what steps they can take to minimize these effects.
  • Identifying Red-Listed seafood on the menu. Students investigated seafood sources to determine if they are on the Red List. This meant speaking with food system actors such as distributors and fisheries and comparing information to Ocean Wise resources.
  • Exploring strategies for more sustainable menu alternatives. Students proposed potential replacements using comparable items and looked for distributors.
  • The students presented their work to the dining hall’s Chef, Dietitian and Sustainability Manager, Director of Operations and Marketing Manager.
  • These efforts aimed to promote environmentally responsible dining practices at Acadia University while raising awareness about the importance of sustainable seafood sourcing.

Background:

Buying seafood that is Red-Listed has been recognized worldwide as a significant problem, as it is linked to major concerns for our fisheries and the health of the planet such as low fish stock numbers, destabilization of the ecosystem-wide food chain, and Irresponsible fishing practices that contribute to the destruction of our oceans.

With the growing population and growing appetite for fish and seafood in developed nations, billions of people around the world rely on fish and seafood as an essential source of protein and a means of income. Researchers have gathered that this seafood should not be made commercially available and alternative options need to be considered.

Organizations such as Seafood Watch, categorize red-listed seafood through different ranking systems tailored for various types of fishing such as fisheries and aquaculture, and score them based on their sustainability criteria.

The sum of the scores allow the seafood to fall into Green (good choice), Yellow (good alternative), or Red (avoid) categories. Other organizations such as Ocean-Wise and Aquaculture Stewardship Council also assess sustainability based on Seafood Watch’s sustainability scoring system  and convert the scores from three-fold to a binary system of Green and Red. Learn more…

Lessons Learnt:

  • Through research, students gathered that the problem is that there is a lot of complexity and lack of transparency surrounding the global seafood supply chain and what seafood is sustainable to eat.
  • There is a need to improve transparency regarding sustainable seafood and ability to access this information. The group learned about the importance of understanding these tools to identify relevant information about sustainable seafood options.
  • It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure sustainable seafood consumption. Policies should be put in place to regulate how seafood is being labeled sustainable.
  • While not easy, it is possible to identify unsustainable seafood sources and replace them with more sustainable sources.
  • Sustainably sourced seafood, such as recirculating aquaculture is not perfect but can create seafood options. These options can be much more expensive, and we rely on food and nutrition professionals to get creative in the kitchen to use them more sparingly.
  • The seafood that the students helped remove included the red-listed atlantic salmon and white shrimp that was being served in the Acadia dining hall.  Students gathered sustainable options to be presented as recommendations to replace these red-listed menu items. The better choices included the Ocean Wise-approved farmed Whiteleg shrimp and the Ocean Wise-approved farmed Giant Tiger shrimp. 

What Else? Other Relevant Examples

  • Recirculating aquaculture is Ocean Wise approved by fisheries worldwide and is often used for Atlantic salmon farming. Learn more…
  • Through the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, you can search ASC-certified seafood using a simple drop-down search. Learn more…
  • Organizations such as the Marine Conservation Society create resources to help educate students about ocean sustainability. Learn more…
  • Nourish Canada has developed a Sustainable Menu Guide that can guide menus for organizations such as University campuses. The menu guide simplifies efforts o create sustainable menus that reduce environmental impact while offering healthy, affordable, acceptable, and fair food to clients.  While not specific to sustainable seafood, it is more broadly helpful with practical examples.

Food for Thought
How do we ensure that we have aquatic resources for the future, especially with the growing demand?
What kind of tools are effective or needed to empower and educate consumers to make sustainable choices?
What supports do food service providers need to serve sustainable seafood choices?

Contact Information
Madalyn Higgins, Madalyn.Higgins@compass-canada.com

SFS Education in Nutrition & Dietetics degrees: Global Case Studies (2023.07)

At a Glance

  • We are an international group of collaborating dietetic educator who share our stories about integrating sustainable food systems into nutrition and dietetic curriculum.
  • Dietetic educators are being called to prepare future dietitians and nutritionists to contribute to SFS transformation.
  • Dietetic educators integrating Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) education into the curriculum have shared examples.
  • An online platform for sharing examples serves as a series of mini case studies

History

In preparation for a workshop at the World Public Health Nutrition Congress 2020, subsequently postponed due to COVID-19, an international group of collaborating dietetic educator shared their stories about integrating sustainable food systems into nutrition and dietetic curriculum. In lieu of a face-to-face workshop at the Congress, facilitators have created the online platform.

This content was put together to showcase effective mechanisms and innovative approaches through international case studies which aim to improve food system competency among students and describe how this may translate into improved outcomes.

In the link you will see that each workshop facilitator has a profile, inclusive of an explanation (video or otherwise) of their showcased teaching and learning activity as described above.

Food for Thought

  • If you are an educator training future nutrition and dietetic professionals, are you already including sustainable food systems content in the courses that you teach? — If yes, how and what? If not, why not?
  • Do any of the examples included provoke new ideas for you? — Could they be adapted to your setting?
  • Is/should this topic integrated into the core content of your program, or is/should this an elective/optional topic

Contact Information
We welcome you to join us!
Please contact liza.barbour@monash.edu (in Australia) if you would like to be added to the platform or if you have questions.
If you have questions for any of the educators, their contact is included in the web platform.
Please contact them directly.

Small Producer’s Symbol (SPP)

At a Glance:

  • SPP is “an intercontinental network of ecological small-producer organizations” with independent certification
  • Only 100% producer-driver collective for fairly traded and ecologically sustainable foods
  • This unique structure guarantees that prices are based on real cost of production and free of producer exploitation
  • Combines social and ecological sustainability criteria in one certification

Fair Trade Certifications

In a world where food supply chains increasingly stretch across the globe, buying foods produced closer to where they are consumed is one effective strategy for being able to trace, understand and choose supply chains that are more sustainable. Focusing menus on seasonal produce and local procurement are effective paths forward for contributing to local economies, supporting local production capacity and resulting food security, and facilitating transparency and accountability around production practices.

Some foods, however, can only be produced in certain ecological regions and parts of the world and can only be obtained through trade. For temperate countries these include coffee, cacao and sugar in addition to tropical fruits and vegetables. Third party certifications that establish standards and criteria around production practices and trade relationships are one strategy for tracing the environmental and social impacts and striving for sustainability of these foods across long distances where producers and consumers cannot interact directly. Many fair trade certifications exist (see ‘What Else?’ box) and it is important to understand their strengths and weaknesses in terms of standards and accountability.

Small Producer Symbol

The Small Producer Symbol (SPP) was launched in 2006. It is the only 100% producer-driven collective that provides independent certification for fairly traded and ecological products. SPP is the culmination of the evolution of various small producer networks and movements starting in the 1960s. It was created in response to the challenges and continuing inequities faced by small producers working to meet consumer-driven fair trade certifications. Without equal representation from and decision making power in the hands of producers, consumer-driven fair trade certifications may fail to represent producer perspectives, consider producer-specific challenges, and cover the real costs of production.

The Small Producers Symbol consists of 120 small producers’ organizations representing 50 million families across Latin America-Caribbean, Africa and Asia. Products from 30 countries are certified by SPP and sold in 50 consumer countries. SPP represents a simple but powerful shift in the mechanics of fair trade by centring producer voices and concerns in the process of determining what ‘fair’ prices and criteria are, while offering consumers traceability of products and transparency on production techniques and organizational structures.

As a producer-driven initiative, the SPP independent certification represents:

  1. Solidarity between organized small producers, committed companies and consumers
  2. High quality organic, agroecological and healthy products
  3. Prices based on real cost of production and free of exploitation
  4. Complete supply chain traceability
  5. Living income for producers

SPP strives to “build a local and global market that values the identity and the economic, social, cultural and ecological contributions of their products and organizations, in a relationship based on collaboration, trust and co-responsibility among men and women who are small producers, buyers and consumers.” (SPP, 2018)

What Else? Other Relevant Examples

Food for Thought
What aspects of social sustainability feel most relevant to your work?
What role can certifications play in helping your organization or community set and meet social sustainability targets?
How important does it feel to have producer voices equitably represented in determining certification criteria and standards?

Contact Information
WhatsApp: +52-1-55-6375-5572                    Telephone: +52-55-5264-7205
Website: spp.coop             Email: info@spp.coop
Address: Calzada de Tlalpan No. 3267 Int. 304, 3er piso, Santa Úrsula Coapa, Covoacán, C.P. 04650 CDMX, México

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