How the sustainable food movement is shaping campus dining

When Boston University began its sustainable dining initiative in 2007, it started small: hire someone to coordinate the program. Focus on sorting and reducing kitchen waste. Start a compost scheme.

Today, not only does the university recycle, repurpose, or compost about 75 percent of waste from its kitchens, it also sources 22 percent of its food from sustainable suppliers. All eggs served on campus, for instance – about 4 million a year – are cage-free and independently certified as humane. The 23 tons of ground beef, hamburgers, and hot dogs that make it to the university’s three dining halls are sourced from 100 percent grass-fed Maine cows.

The story is echoed in the dining halls of colleges across the country. Driven by a broader movement toward sustainable practices – as well as a desire to attract students who increasingly place a premium on locally sourced and humanely raised food – higher-education institutions have increasingly committed to buying more local and organic products from vendors who engage in fair, transparent methods of supplying food.

The result is that universities are growing more aware of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to serving fresh, healthy, and environmentally sound meals to students – and of the impact their efforts can have on attitudes and local economies.

“Universities play a tremendous role in letting people know the importance of sustainability,” says Lydia Zepeda, a professor of consumer science and an expert on sustainable consumption at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Not only do such institutions wield considerable purchasing power within their communities, she says, but they can also leverage a lot of publicity around the issue.

More than 600 US schools now participate in the sustainability tracking program run by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) – one of a number of organizations that help colleges assess their sustainable practices. Between 2013 and 2014, campuses saw a 60 percent rise in regional and local food initiatives, the group's latest report found.

While the overall impact of these trends has been difficult to measure – different institutions have different ways of measuring success – it's easy to see how big the potential is for local businesses: Food service sales at colleges and universities for 2015 are expected to hit about $16.2 billion, or 2.4 percent of the food industry total, according to research and consulting firm Technomic.

"The buying power is a big deal," says Professor Zepeda.

Working with students, partners

For many institutions, student engagement has been key to getting their sustainability initiatives off the ground. As part of its program, BU puts up signs about the various ingredients that go into each meal, hosts information campaigns, and holds a weekly farmers’ market in an attempt to get students to buy local, organic food.

Such efforts resonated with Lucy Mui, an international relations major. As a freshman at BU, she says she had little concern for where her food came from.

“With the signage and campaigns in our dining halls, I began to consider the stories behind my meals – the people, the inputs, the process,” said Ms. Mui, now a senior and an intern with the university’s sustainability initiative, in an e-mail. “It opened up a whole new dimension of food for me.”

Across the country in northeast Los Angeles, Occidental College is engaged in a similar campaign to explain the ethics of eating, says Dylan Bruce, a senior and head intern for Occidental's sustainability program. Measures include a weekly organic bar and an effort to include locally or sustainably grown ingredients in familiar meals.

“Even if [students] are paying $4 more per plate, they see they are getting a great meal,” he says. “It’s about putting it into perspective for them.”

That understanding is critical to both ensuring the program’s success and extending its impact beyond students’ time at the university, Mr. Bruce says. “It’s not just about leveraging the purchasing impact of the institution, but the buying power of the students.”