Overall Rating	Gold
Overall Score	67.35
Liaison	Juliana Goodlaw-Morris
Submission Date	Feb. 6, 2024

STARS v2.2

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

Status	Score	Responsible Party
	2.00 / 2.00	Juliana Goodlaw-Morris Sustainability Manager Safety, Risk and Sustainability

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Part 1. Sustainable dining initiatives

Local community engagement

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?:

Yes

A brief description of the farmers market, CSA or urban agriculture project:

The Sustainable Food Project Garden is an organic garden on campus that yields produces which gets donated to our campus Food Pantry. It is a class-based garden where students can learn about the structure and function of the global food system while experiencing and interacting with the environment on campus and experience growing food for themselves and the CSUSM community.

Sustainability-themed outlet

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?:

Yes

A brief description of the sustainability-themed food outlet:

Our student dining facilities, Campus Way Café, includes a sustainability themed food outlet called "Sprouts" which provides vegan and vegetarian meals to customers. Other food outlets within Campus Way Café offer vegetarian and vegan options as well.

Inclusive and local sourcing

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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Low-impact dining

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. As of Fall 2022, our campus now has a residential dining hall that serves vegan and vegetarian options. There is also a specific food station for those types of meals. Sodexo provides the My Way Café Program, which allows folks to customize their meals specific to their needs.

Vegan dining program

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:

As of Fall 2022, our campus now has a residential dining hall that serves vegan and vegetarian options. There is also a specific food station for those types of meals. Sodexo provides the My Way Café Program, which allows folks to customize their meals specific to their needs. Some examples include vegan burger patties and a vegan cheese option as well.

Labelling and signage

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 in the USU dinning area and they are now offering more vegetarian and vegan offerings. Digital signage discussing sustainability efforts is also displayed in the new residential dining hall.

Part 2. Food waste minimization and recovery

Food recovery program

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.”

Sodexo uses Leanpath to track and improve food waste coming from pre and post production. Chefs weigh the waste to track frequency of waste to then make adjustments in the future to minimize it.

Trayless dining and portion modifications

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?:

Yes

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

We do not have trays in either of our dining facilities.

Food donation

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:

We have implemented an Edible Food Recovery process on campus for left-over food from events. In collaboration with Dining Services, and Event & Conferences Services, we actively promote free leftover food from events to students and campus community members. We encourage folks to bring their reusable containers on campus for this purpose so they can use them when there is free food available.

Sodexo also donates food to our campus food pantry which provides students with free food and produce.

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. We also work to prevent food waste from on campus events.

Food materials diversion

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 5,000lbs of cooking oil is converted into bio-diesel with our partnership with Filta.

Campus Way Cafe:

451 lbs. of Cardboard and Plastic Saved with Bulk Oil FiltaGold
3,150 lbs. of Oil Saved with FiltaFry Service
3,625 lbs. of Waste Oil Collected & Recycled with FiltaBio Service

Rest of our dining services on campus:

429 lbs. of Cardboard and Plastic Saved with Bulk Oil FiltaGold
3,250 lbs. of Oil Saved with FiltaFry Service
3,150 lbs. of Waste Oil Collected & Recycled with FiltaBio Service

Composting

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:

All of our food dining services compost pre-consumer food waste as part of our campus wide composting efforts. Sodexo uses different colored bags to ensure proper waste sorting in the kitchen and in dining areas.

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 now offers a program to accept post-consumer food waste. Per SB 1383 we have implemented composting across our campus. There are composting bins in all dining services locations, kitchenettes, and all of our waste receptacles that are placed outside are 3 binned with landfill, recycle and compost.

Dine-in service ware

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. With our new residential dining services, only reusable services ware is used, including reusable plates, cups, utensils, bowls and mugs.

Take-away materials

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)?:

Yes

A brief description of the compostable containers and service ware:

Dining Services does provide some compostable containers for "to-go" meals at the USU and they also provide compostable "to-go" containers for left over food after events.

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 our on campus Coffee Cart gives you a large coffee for the price of a small if you bring your own cup.

Optional Fields

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

Meat-Free Eats is a program that helps students learn how to cook meals without meat as a more sustainable alternative.

Website URL where information about the sustainable dining programs is available:

https://www.csusm.edu/sustainability/operational_goals/sustainablefood/index.html

Additional documentation to support the submission:

Cal_State_San_Marcos_Cafe_EIR_1-1-23_to_12-20-23.pdf

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

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