Overall Rating Reporter - expired
Overall Score
Liaison Denice Koljonen
Submission Date March 2, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Boston College
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete Reporter Megan O'Neill
Assoc. Director
Dining Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on products that are third party verified under one or more recognized food and beverage sustainability standards or Local & Community-Based:
17.86

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on conventional animal products)? (If data is not available, respond “No”):
No

Percentage of total dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional animal products (meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, and dairy products that do NOT qualify in either the Third Party Verified or Local & Community-Based category):
---

A brief description of the sustainable food and beverage purchasing program, including how the sustainability impacts of products in specific categories are addressed (e.g. meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, dairy, produce, tea/coffee):

Boston College Dining Services is a member of the "Menus of Change University Research Collaborative" which prioritizes sustainable and plant-forward menus. Costa Fruit & Produce, one of our prime vendors, is a founding sponsor of the Collaborative. As part of our focus on plant-forward menus, as of the 2017/2018 school year 100% of our beef burgers in one of our busiest locations are now 40% plant-sources and 60% beef.


An inventory of the institution’s sustainable food and beverage purchases that includes for each product: the description/type; label, brand or producer; and the category in which it is being counted and/or a description of its sustainability attribute(s):
A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):

Our "sustainable" inventory is calculated as a percentage of our expenditures divided into three main value-added categories: Locally Manufactured (i.e. processed or produced product); Regionally Sourced (i.e. grown or raised raw product); Sustainable/Socially Responsible (i.e. Fair Trade, Certified Organic, Cooperatively-owned; minority-owned)


Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
0

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
0

Which of the following food service providers are present on campus and included in the total food and beverage expenditure figures?:
Present? Included?
Dining operations and catering services operated by the institution Yes Yes
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor No No
Student-run food/catering services No No
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) No No
Convenience stores Yes No
Vending services Yes Yes
Concessions Yes Yes

A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :

All dining units provide compostable plant-fiber burrito bowls for to go meals from World Centric, a company which donates 25% or more of its profits to social justice and environmental causes around the world. Investments include sustainable infrastructure investements for indigenous communites in Sub-saharan Africa and carbon offset investments which work to regenerate ecosystems.


Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
4.14

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Boston College's dining team prides itself on living our school's Jesuit values of social justice and educating the whole person. Our food service is unique in that it is 100% self-operated and therefore empowered to set its own agenda, which over the past few years has been focused on prioritizing ecologically sound and socially just food. Most notable in our efforts has been the fall 2017 launch of our self-branded "F.R.E.S.H. to Table" initiative which promotes food literacy among students and staff, while prioritizing the purchase of regional, sustainable, healthy and ethically produced food. FRESH stands for Fairly Traded, Regionally, Equitable, Sustainable and Healthy. Our dining program recently hired a Regional and Sustainable Food Manager to further realize our vision of becoming a leader in healthy, sustainable and socially just food served in a higher educational environment.

Note: We do not use Real Food Calculator so skipped the two Real Food questions.


Boston College's dining team prides itself on living our school's Jesuit values of social justice and educating the whole person. Our food service is unique in that it is 100% self-operated and therefore empowered to set its own agenda, which over the past few years has been focused on prioritizing ecologically sound and socially just food. Most notable in our efforts has been the fall 2017 launch of our self-branded "F.R.E.S.H. to Table" initiative which promotes food literacy among students and staff, while prioritizing the purchase of regional, sustainable, healthy and ethically produced food. FRESH stands for Fairly Traded, Regionally, Equitable, Sustainable and Healthy. Our dining program recently hired a Regional and Sustainable Food Manager to further realize our vision of becoming a leader in healthy, sustainable and socially just food served in a higher educational environment.

Note: We do not use Real Food Calculator so skipped the two Real Food questions.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.