Cambridge Green

cjb250 — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 09:15:20 +0000

From removing ruminant meat from its menus to building ‘green’ buildings, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is weaving sustainability into its very fabric. Only bold steps will help it achieve an ambitious target of becoming zero carbon by 2048 – or even earlier.

Removing beef and lamb from menu dramatically reduces food-related carbon emissions at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��

cjb250 — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 04:25:38 +0000

In October 2016, the ̽��ֱ�� Catering Service (UCS), which is responsible for 14 outlets across the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and over 1,500 hospitality events each year, implemented the policy, which focused on the areas with the biggest impact without compromising on cost. These were:

Reducing the consumption of meat, in particular ruminant meat (beef and lamb)
Improving and increasing the availability of plant-based options
Removing unsustainable fish from the menu
Reducing food waste

Our Sustainable Food Journey, published by the ̽��ֱ��’s Environment and Energy team, reveals that since implementation, despite increases in how much food was purchased, overall carbon emissions across UCS were reduced by 10.5%. There was a 33% reduction in carbon emissions per kilogram of food purchased, and a 28% reduction in land use per kilogram of food purchased.

“Sustainability is extremely important to our students and staff and we wanted to ensure that we were not only responding to their needs, but pushing what was considered possible in a catering environment,” explains Nick White, Head of the UCS. “This has involved making sacrifices, but is has been absolutely the right thing to do. It’s about making the right choice easy.”

Securing support from catering service staff was key to making these changes. Catering staff were briefed on the environmental benefits of the Sustainable Food Policy and why the UCS wanted to implement it. As cooking with meat is a key part of most chef’s training, the UCS provided chefs with vegan cookery classes and a trip to Borough Market to get inspiration for plant-based menus. Meanwhile, café managers were given training on marketing for sustainability rather than profit.

To encourage changes in behaviour among the customers, UCS increased the number and variety of vegetarian and vegan options at the same time as removing ruminant meat. They also used subtle ‘nudge’ techniques, including placing the vegetarian and vegan options before the meat options and changing how food options were labelled.

“If you go to most restaurants, they’ll put a ‘V’ for vegetarian or label something as vegan,” says Catering Manager Paula White. “We didn’t do that, we just put what’s in it. You use your eyes, your nose. If you look at something and think ‘Wow, that looks good’, you’re not first of all thinking ‘Is there beef in that?’”

̽��ֱ��Sustainable Food Policy has been widely supported by customers. ̽��ֱ��UCS now sells more sustainable, plant-based food, and as a bonus, they retain the same level of footfall, and have increased their gross profits by 2% from 2014/2015 to 2017/2018, despite increases in food costs.

Andrew Balmford, Professor of Conservation Science at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who advised UCS on how to make the necessary changes, says: “ ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��’s catering managers have, in a very short time, dramatically reduced the environmental footprint of their operation by removing ruminant meat from its menus, lowering food waste and eliminating unsustainably harvested fish– while simultaneously increasing sales and profit. It is hard to imagine any other interventions that could yield such dramatic benefits in so short a span of time.”

̽��ֱ��UCS also decided to stop selling single-use plastic bottles, and have replaced these with glass bottles, cans or bio-degradable bottles. This has led to saving over 30,000 plastic bottles from landfill per year.

On the menu

A typical menu at the ̽��ֱ�� Centre’s Main Dining Hall is:

Aubergine rogan josh
Butternut squash lasagne
Roast chicken
Breaded pork escalope

̽��ֱ��full report is available to read on the Environment and Energy website.

A Sustainable Food Policy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, which includes removing beef and lamb from the menu and promoting plant-based food options, has had a dramatic effect on food-related carbon emissions at the ̽��ֱ��, a report released today reveals.

It is hard to imagine any other interventions that could yield such dramatic benefits in so short a span of time

Andrew Balmford

SvenHilker (Pixabay)

Vegetables

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Nick White

Cambridge Green

Removing beef and lamb from menu dramatically reduces food-related carbon emissions at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��

On the menu