Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 67.57
Liaison Juliana Goodlaw-Morris
Submission Date Dec. 18, 2020

STARS v2.2

California State University, San Marcos
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.68 / 2.00 Juliana Goodlaw-Morris
Sustainability Manager
Safety, Risk and Sustainability
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host a farmers market, community supported agriculture (CSA) or fishery program, or urban agriculture project, or support such a program in the local community?:
No

A brief description of the farmers market, CSA or urban agriculture project:
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host a sustainability-themed food outlet on-site, either independently or in partnership with a contractor or retailer?:
No

A brief description of the sustainability-themed food outlet:
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor support disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through its food and beverage purchasing?:
Yes

A brief description of the support for disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs:

Sodexo’s Supply Management Supplier Diversity Program

At Sodexo, Diversity and Inclusion is embedded in our business and our values. We believe that diversity in our workforce gives us access to the best talent, and our D&I culture provides the ability to attract and retain this talent. This belief transcends into our supply base. We know that working with suppliers that mirror our consumers and our communities makes our company more relevant in the markets in which we operate. We also know that we want to partner with companies that have the same convictions about utilizing talent in all its forms.

The Partner Inclusion Program leverages best practices from Sodexo operations around the world in support of a commitment that all countries will develop strong and sustainable relationships with suppliers in at least one of the following categories:
• Small-and medium-sized Enterprises (SME’s), including social and micro-enterprises
• Suppliers from minority and other under-represented and/or protected groups (as defined in country), with an emphasis on women-owned businesses
• Major Sodexo suppliers will demonstrate a diverse workforce composition, actively embracing diversity and inclusion and promoting local supply chain inclusion.
Sodexo has publicly committed to having an inclusion program and tracks their progress by country annually for both women and underutilized suppliers as defined in country as well as spend with local small businesses or SME (Small Medium Enterprise) with goals of 25% SME spend globally focusing on diverse SMEs by 2025.

Supplier Diversity Procurement Policy in the US
The use of diverse suppliers and partners throughout the organization brings better value to our customers, clientele and the communities in which we live, work, and serve. As a result, we will:
• Hold all management personally accountable for increasing Supplier Diversity spend through our Diversity Scorecard
• Include qualified diverse vendors in all RFP’s handled by Supply Management.
• Establish supplier diversity goals for the divisions and company, reporting our supplier diversity spend on a quarterly basis.
• Actively seek diverse vendors through Sodexo’s supplier diversity website, our membership in diverse organizations and our attendance at various events.
• Require all manufacturers to establish a supplier diversity program within one year of contracting.
• Include supplier diversity as part of the business review process.

Currently in the US, Sodexo utilizes over 3000 national, regional and local diverse and small businesses. Our vendors include those that directly service our operations as well as those that provide services or products to our regional and corporate headquarters staff.


Estimated percentage of total food and beverage expenditures on products from disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs:
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host low impact dining events or promote plant-forward options?:
Yes

A brief description of the low impact dining events and/or plant-forward options:

Every Monday, the Sustainability program promotes Meatless Monday. We also promote food options around San Diego that are vegetarian and vegan. Due to the fact that we do not have a cafeteria, we are limited on campus, but have worked with Sodexo, our food service provider to offer more vegan and vegetarian offerings daily.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a vegan dining program that makes diverse, complete-protein vegan options available to every member of the campus community at every meal?:
Yes

A brief description of the vegan dining program:

Although at this time, we do not offer a cafeteria style dining for campus, our food service provider does offer a vegan option when they are open at a variety of eateries.

Which can be found here: https://www.csusm.edu/sustainability/docs/vegetarianglutenfreemenu.pdf


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor inform customers about low impact food choices and sustainability practices through labelling and signage in dining halls?:
Yes

A brief description of the sustainability labelling and signage in dining halls:

We do have Sodexo's commitment to sustainability on the wall and they are now offering more vegetarian and vegan offerings. In addition, they will put up signage for different sustainability events and efforts, such as our no straw campaign.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor participate in a competition or commitment program and/or use a food waste prevention system to track and improve its food management practices?:
Yes

A brief description of the food recovery competition or commitment program or food waste prevention system:

The CSU participates in diverting commercial and post-consumer food waste from landfills and incinerators through its Organic Recycling program. It also is mandated to report annually the amount of food waste generated and types of programming focused on minimizing the amount of organic waste generated on site to the CalRecycle State Agency Reporting Center (SARC), per AB 1826 Solid Waste: Organic Recycling.

For AB 1826 Bill Text and more information, please visit: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1826&search_keywords

The California State University Sustainability Policy (https://calstate.policystat.com/policy/6987526/latest/) states under Part H. Sustainable Food Service: “All campus food service organizations should track their sustainable food purchases. Such tracking and reporting will be grounded in the Real Food Challenge guidelines, or equivalent, with consideration to campus requested improvements. Campuses shall strive to increase their sustainable food purchases to 20 percent of total food budget by 2020.
Campuses and food service organizations shall collaborate to provide information and/or training on sustainable food service operations to staff and patrons.”

The campus has had a composting program for several years to dispose of used coffee grounds. Beginning Fall 2015 the campus partnered with our third party in food services to dispose of their pre-consumer waste.


Has the institution or its primary dining services contractor implemented trayless dining (in which trays are removed from or not available in dining halls) and/or modified menus/portions to reduce post-consumer food waste?:
No

A brief description of the trayless dining or modified menu/portion program:

Composting food containers are not used on campus at this time.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor donate food that would otherwise go to waste to feed people?:
Yes

A brief description of the food donation program:

For move out, we collect non-perishable food and distribute to our on campus pantry. In addition, there are different times of the year where we host food drives for our campus community.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor divert food materials from the landfill, incinerator or sewer for animal feed or industrial uses?:
Yes

A brief description of the food materials diversion program:

Annually over 8000lbs of cooking oil is converted into bio-diesel with our partnership with Filta.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a pre-consumer composting program?:
Yes

A brief description of the pre-consumer composting program:

Coffee grounds and pre-consumer waste is picked up on a daily basis from the on campus kitchen area and onsite coffee businesses then delivered to our onsite compost area. We compost on average about 800lbs of pre-consumer organics weekly. In January 2020, we partnered with a small, women-owned start up composting company and have started composting some pre and post consumer food scraps. Due to COVID, this doesn't yet have a large impact on our waste.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a post-consumer composting program?:
Yes

A brief description of the post-consumer composting program:

The campus’s waste hauler currently does not offer a program to accept post-consumer food waste. At this time, we are partnering with a small, women-owned organics business. She has the equipment on our campus. We are working to have post-consumer waste pick up from specific locations. However, due to COVID, the roll out of our program is slower than we had hoped.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor utilize reusable service ware for “dine in” meals?:
Yes

A brief description of the reusable service ware program:

For some events, we will use reusable service ware, but the majority are single use


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor provide reusable and/or third party certified compostable containers and service ware for “to-go” meals (in conjunction with an on-site composting program)?:
No

A brief description of the compostable containers and service ware:

Dining Services does not provide these items at this time.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor offer discounts or other incentives to customers who use reusable containers instead of disposable or compostable containers in “to-go” food service operations?:
Yes

A brief description of the reusable container discount or incentives program:

On campus Starbucks provides a $0.10 discount to customers who bring in their own reusable cups and $0.20 at Sodexo run- Jazzman's cafe and the Coffee Cart gives you a large coffee for the price of a small if you bring your own cup.


A brief description of other sustainability-related initiatives not covered above:

The dining services contractor does help with our Cougar Eats program. This program helps students learn how to cook healthy and nutritious food.


Website URL where information about the sustainable dining programs is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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