GRA: Green Certified Restaurants

Sustainability seems to be entering the restaurant business as the GRA provides guidelines and certification for restaurants aiming at "green" practices. Their website is extensive, providing names of restaurants that are currently certified, in addition to a list of products and suppliers that are endorsed as green.

This kind of certification mirrors LEED guidelines for sustainability in architecture, and these standards may become as popular. The possibility of a green restaurant is a great marketing idea, in addition to obvious environmental and social benefits. What further guidelines could be provided? How could these standards be applied to a cafeteria, such as the PIT, not to mention Benson, Subway, and the Coffee shop? What other systems in the restaurant business could be closed? What would a fully sustainable place for cooking, eating, and socializing look like?

Here is a list of some admittedly outrageous suggestions for...

THE SUSTAINABLE CAFETERIA

1. Have a composting facility ON CAMPUS, producing fertilizer that would be used in:
2. A spice garden in front of the PIT, and a vegetable garden somewhere else, each of which produces food to be used in the PIT
3. Using floors that turn foot traffic into energy in the PIT. Possibly they could run the lights. Maybe even put these "energy walkways" throughout the Mag quad area.
4. Have turnstiles at entrances and capture that energy for some use.
5. Use only local produce
6. Instead of using even biodegradable materials, make students rent Tupperware to-go materials for the semester. A similar program is being pushed at Eckerd College.
   
7. Have the dishwasher facility recycle dish water and maybe channel that power through a water turbine to power something else.
8. Capture the heat coming from cooking and use it to heat the rest of Reynolda hall
   
9. Vending machine refrigerators: Having the refrigerated materials organized so that they can be retrieved through a vending machine-style system, where the door is not opened and therefore cool air not wasted. This would, perhaps, save a great deal of energy.
   

These are initial ideas: what can be done further?

UNCG Film Series: The Future of Food

In partnership with the international non-profit Slow Food, UNCG will be showing a documentary film The Future of Food on March 29th at Jarrel Hall in Jackson Library.

Slow Food "was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."

Wake Forest also has the opportunity to bring this appreciation back to its students by incorporating local food into Aramark's food choices. Check out Slow Food's website and the Winston-Salem Slow Food chapter to learn more about the local food movement.

Sustainability Education

Another exciting element of Wake Forest Sustainability Week is our partnership with Facilities Management. Together, we will work to further inform students about the concept of sustainability and it merits. Some of the methods we will use to promote sustainability include:

1.  Small Blue Recycling Bins: Facilities would like to promote the use of the small blue recycling bins in residence halls and offices/classrooms.  Facilities will provide us with few hundred of these items and they will be distributed to students who pledge to use them ONLY for recycling materials in their dorm rooms (not as a trash can).

2.  Campus Recycling Data: Facilities has a matrix that shows the quantities of recycling the campus has done this year.  We would like to blow this up to show how much we currently recycle/reuse on campus.

3.  Electric cart: There is a possibility that we will be able to display one of the electric utility carts that Facilities is considering buying for campus use by staff.  

4.  Green Cleaning:  Facilities is willing to provide samples of new green cleaning chemicals and papers. We could also provide literature to show how those products are more green than other cleaning supplies.

In addition to these ideas, we are currently investigating other means of promoting sustainability. 

What Aramark is doing at other schools; why aren't these things being done everywhere; why is it not being done here?

***Student initiative IS NEEDED to make these sustainable activities reach Wake Forest***

Local Produce

University of Pennsylvania and ARAMARK worked together to bring a popular local Farmer’s Market to campus. Students can use Dining Dollars from their meal plan to purchase locally grown or prepared products, such as produce, cider, home-style baked goods, jams, preserves and pickled vegetables.

Biodegradable Packaging/Food Options

To-go food is packed in biodegradable containers. Residential dining hall tables are made out of bamboo and the campus sells organic, shade grown, fair trade coffee. Hayden also features eco-friendly practices, such as biodegradable take-out containers and utensils made from potatoes instead of plastic.

Different Food used- no preservatives etc.

New York University‘s newly remodeled Hayden Dining Hall emphasizes sustainable dining and healthy eating by offering freshly baked breads and handmade cheeses produced without accelerators; deli meats produced with no cereal fillers; and meats raised without hormones or antibiotics. A new circular food bar features a wide variety of Vegan foods grown within a 200-mile radius of the University.

Organic Composting

At Brandeis University, the campus community wanted to reduce its ecological footprint and showed significant interest in composting, a process that allows food waste, table scraps and yard waste to decompose naturally. Compost is used in gardening and agriculture, and when mixed with topsoil, improves soil structure, increases the amount of organic matter, and provides nutrients. ARAMARK began composting all materials from the dining halls which totals about 405 tons of waste per year.

Recycling

ARAMARK encourages clients to participate in Recyclemania, a competition challenging colleges and universities to collect recyclables over 10 weeks to raise awareness of environmental and conservation issues.


All of these initiatives were a result of student initiative. They all started with an idea. Sustainability week will also promote awareness of what we could be doing.