More on Food, Lauren Heising

Environmental Project – Jean Spencer – Food Outline

I. Food

a. Lauren Heising

i. Over 6,000 on-campus students, faculty and hundreds of off-campus students use the University of Colorado dining services to curb their hunger each day. The large, public university, which was recently ranked the top “green university” by Sierra Magazine(http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200909/coolschools/ ) – attempts to feed these hungry students and professors with top-quality foods from local and organic sources.

However, despite their attempts, food was the University’s second lowest ranked item on Sierra magazine’s eight item checklist that defined the “green-ness” of campuses, including transportation, energy, academics and purchasing among others.

Lauren Heising, CU’s coordinator for sustainable dining in the university’s Housing and Dining department (http://housing.colorado.edu/ ), said revamping the school’s food and dining programs are one of the central initiatives looked at by the university to make the campus more green.

Already, Heising said, CU leads many universities in sustainability practices. Still, despite the “laundry list” of sustainable practices the university employs, there is room for improvement.

Specifically the campus will look to improve: energy and conservation, waste management, purchasing and student education in terms of dining sustainability in the next few years.

· Energy & Conservation (new page – including sub-categories, links to energy and conservation Web sites)

· Waste Management

· Purchasing

· Education

“So far we’ve done the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ stuff,” Heising said in a November 9 interview. “We’ve switched to natural burgers, but can’t afford organic burgers yet.”

The costs of organic and local foods, as well as the reliability of the product is one of the biggest challenges Heising and the Housing and Dining Services department faces when seeking to accommodate thousands of individuals with food.

For instance, if the university switched to local tomatoes, and Colorado had a bad hailstorm, the university would not have any tomatoes for more than 6,000 people relying on their being tomatoes, Heising said.

Moreover, the costs associated with organic foods far surpass conventional food products, which puts strain on the university’s overall food budget.

Nevertheless, CU is a leading university in making foods green.

In partnership with the Environmental center, and particularly with Professor Lisa Barlow’s “The Campus and the Biosphere” environmental class, CU has made – and continues to make – innovative steps in making CU dining greener.

Barlow (http://envs.colorado.edu/people/Cxx/faculty_details/barlow_lisa/ ), a 2005 recipient of the Green Faculty Award for commitment toward a sustainable future, has developed a number of unique ideas that the university has implemented into it’s practices that make a sustainable future more realistic.

One of these initiatives is a one-acre farm, to be constructed and planted for the 2010-11 school year.

The small farm, which will be located in East Campus, will be home to fresh produce grown and maintained by students. The crops’ yield will be used in campus dining facilities, Heising said.

However, Heising warned, such a small farm may not have huge impacts for on-campus dining on a whole, because of its small scale.

“Still, it’s a step in the right direction,” Heising said.

Another example of Barlow’s class suggestions to the campus was how to reduce Grab-and-Go (a student take-out dinery) wastes (http://envs.colorado.edu/uploads/undergrad/Full_press_release.pdf ). The initiative implemented in 2007, and eventually led to the removal of plastic bags from Grab-and-Go dining centers altogether.

“We try to implement everything that we can,” Heising said. “We are buying green equipment as fast as it’s on the market.”

Lauren Heising photo/vid ops –

ii. Still of her office door, her, project panels, c4c construction site, dining hall

iii. Video

iv. Dining hall food prep

b. Energy & Conservation

Energy and Conservation is the University of Colorado’s primary goal in revamping their sustainable food and dining practices for the 2010-2011 school year, according to Housing and Dining Services coordinator for sustainable dining Lauren Heising.

The initiative includes reconsidering hardware and operative machines a part of food preparation and waste management sectors of the campus’s dining facilities.

Such measures may include

· Purchasing energy star rated equipment – ovens, fryers, refrigerators

· UV “self cleaning” hoods – decreases chemical use

· Conversion of food delivery trucks to biodiesel and/or electric delivery vehicles (Link to Valerie’s transportation page)

· Compact florescent lighting/day lighting in new facilities

· Filtered water stations

· Refridgerator/freezor compressors – expected to save 10,000 gallons of water per year

*According to the University of Colorado at Boulder Housing & Dining Services Sustainability in Dining Services 3.09 document

c. Waste Management

Waste management is an important part of the sustainable practices in dining, and is the second objective for campus officials to look at adjusting for the 2010-11 school year. Already, a variety of measures are implemented into regular campus practices that make CU a leader in waste management including recycling, compost and re-using grease from on-campus eateries.

First, CU recycles (http://recycling.colorado.edu/ ).

Since 1976, the CU has worked towards recycled goods in order to clean up the environment as a part of the program dubbed “CU Recycling.”

According to the program’s site (http://recycling.colorado.edu/cu_recycling/about_cu_recycling/at_a_glance.html ), CU recycles 1,250 tons of paper, over 220 tons of ground debris and about 20 cubic yards of re-usable clothing, books, and appliances.

The program also recognizes 118 tons of pre/post-consumer food wastes are composted each year.

In total, about 35 to 40 percent of total campus wastes are recycled or composted.

CU Housing and Dining Services dining sustainability coordinator, Lauren Heising, said the university is already extremely conscious or pre- and post-consumer wastes, but would like to improve its already good measures. The university hopes to do this by:

· Offering students compost-collectables in the University Memorial Center as well as in eateries.

· Add pre- and post-consumer pulper to dining centers – which will save 183 tons of waste material annually

· Focus of dining preparation recycling

· Offer recyclable containers in Grab-and-Gos

· Switch to reusable bags in Grab-and-Gos, emporiums, and eateries – estimated to save more than 600,000 bags annually

· Work with vendors to decrease overall packaging

· Installation of more fountain beverage stations to reduce individual bottles

*According to the University of Colorado at Boulder Housing & Dining Services Sustainability in Dining Services 3.09 document

Another important step is closing the loop between vegetable and grease oil, transforming it into biodiesel and using that for campus projects. Right now, the university collects its extra grease in bins that are picked up by a private collector and sold, Heising said.

She also added, that many student groups have tried to collect the grease themselves to make the conversion and add to a sustainably future on a more independent level, but that the sheer quantity of grease waste out does what an small group of people could take on.

d. Purchasing

Another objective the campus it looking at revamping is purchasing. Specifically, the university hopes to re-asses what and where food products are being purchased from in order to provide the best – most nutritious – food for its consumers. Including:

· Fair trade, organic coffee

· Organic greens for salad bars

*According to the University of Colorado at Boulder Housing & Dining Services Sustainability in Dining Services 3.09 document

e. Education

The final objective the campus is focused on in order to make dining and foods more sustainable on campus is student and faculty education.

“Students aren’t going to recycle just because there is a bin for it,” Heising said. “They need to know the value of recycling and how to recycle.”

In future years, this may lead to a “sustainable dining club/green living agreement” with incoming freshman about how to recycle and reduce their carbon footprint.

interview with Lauren Heising

I interviewed Lauren Heising, coordinator of University of Colorado dining services sustainability, and learned a lot. She filled me in about what CU is doing currently to reduce its carbon footprint and provide nutritious meals for on-campus diners as well as talked about future plans that the University is looking to implement.

Some of the highlights from the interview:

• 1 acre farm, developed by the environmental center, will be constructed by next year on Boulder's East Campus.
• Already, CU turns its grease and vegetable oil from the dining centers into biodiesel
• Next year their primary goals are looking at revising:

1. Water and energy consumption in terms of food preparation
2. A "better practices guide" to food purchasing
3. Waste control
4. Student education about the importance of sustainability and food.

Heising provided me with many good resources, including credential companies and other university web sites, to look more in depth at food sustainability on campuses.

I plan on keeping in touch with Heisling in order to get the scoop on good video ops and perhaps take some still shots of there development posters, Heising herself and the construction site of the c4c center on campus.