| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 75.88 |
| Liaison | Deborah Steinberg |
| Submission Date | Dec. 17, 2024 |
Carnegie Mellon University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
2.00 / 2.00 |
Justin
Goel Associate Director, Dining Services Dining Services |
Part 1. Sustainable dining initiatives
Local community engagement
A brief description of the farmers market, CSA or urban agriculture project:
Each semester, Chartwells, Carnegie Mellon's primary dining partner, hosts a month of weekly Farmers Markets. Chartwells and over 15 local and campus vendors gather to offer everything from farm-fresh produce to gluten-free baked goods, plants, fresh-squeezed juices, and more.
Sustainability-themed outlet
A brief description of the sustainability-themed food outlet:
Carnegie Mellon Dining Services offers a diverse portfolio of dining destinations. Many dining locations around campus embody sustainability by serving organic products, hormone-free meat, or focusing on vegetarian and vegan foods.
These include:
Chartwells is committed to purchasing 20 percent of their products locally. In addition, much of the meat, fish, produce, and coffee that is served is certified under national systems that promote healthy and low impact farming and harvesting methods.
Millie's Coffee 'n' Creamery offers sustainably-sourced coffee, ice cream, and vegan gelato.
De Fer Coffee & Tea focuses on unique, sustainably sourced specialty coffees, blended loose teas and simple-yet-tasty house-made food, including scones, muffins, cookies, paninis, smoothies and parfaits.
La Prima Espresso Co. is Pittsburgh’s only certified organic coffee roaster. Patrons can enjoy their signature fair-trade, organic blend, iced coffee on tap, nitro coffee, and a frothy and bubbly cold-brew, paired with a variety of baked goods, grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, and sides sourced from La Prima’s local vendor partnerships. La Prima strives to work in a manner respectful to our employees, community, environment, and the farmers who grow our coffee.
Nourish is the campus' allergen-friendly kitchen including a number of vegan offerings.
Taste of India offers delicious Indian cuisine, including a rotating daily menu of traditional vegetarian favorites like chana masala, palak paneer, and rajma served with rice and house-made naan.
The Edge is a Vaad-certified kosher dairy café, featuring bagels with lox, cream cheese, and other toppings, sweet pastries, savory bourekas, fresh pizzas, hot entrees, and a selection of grab-and-go items. Aside from lox, this menu is meatless.
Tahini offers Vaad-certified kosher cuisine including pita sandwiches; couscous and hummus bowls; freshly prepared salads and sides; and a wide variety of plant-based vegan options.
Inclusive and local sourcing
A brief description of the support for disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs:
Estimated percentage of total food and beverage expenditures on products from disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs:
Low-impact dining
A brief description of the low impact dining events and/or plant-forward options:
In addition to the plant-forward dining locations, mentioned previously, Chartwells hosted a series of seminar style dinners, where each course embodies the dinner's theme and mini-talks on the theme are given during each course. Two of these dinners focused on sustainability themes: "Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Dinner" and a "Candlelight Dinner" about energy use.
Vegan dining program
A brief description of the vegan dining program:
The campus dining program has several vendors that provide protein vegan offerings available to the entire campus community throughout the day:
Nourish is the campus' allergen-friendly kitchen including a number of vegan offerings.
Tahini offers a wide variety of plant-based vegan options.
And, for dessert, Millie's Coffee 'n' Creamery offers vegan gelato.
Labelling and signage
A brief description of the sustainability labelling and signage in dining halls:
To reduce landfill waste, dining halls and other food service locations on campus have well-labeled and separate containers for compostables, recyclables, and landfill waste.
Signage also identifies vegetarian and vegan options at select dining locations.
Part 2. Food waste minimization and recovery
Food recovery program
A brief description of the food recovery competition or commitment program or food waste prevention system:
Chartwells, Carnegie Mellon's primaring dining provided, uses a food waste prevention system to track and reduce food waste in all of its campus dining facilities.
CMU participates in the Food Organics category of the Campus Race to Zero Waste competition each year, tracking food waste diversion and recovery efforts.
Trayless dining and portion modifications
A brief description of the trayless dining or modified menu/portion program:
All student dining is 100 % trayless.
Food donation
A brief description of the food donation program:
A local organization, 412 Food Rescue, picks up surplus food from CMU and delivers it to community nonprofit organizations, where it is distributed to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. Pick-ups from CMU began in 2017 and occur in multiple locations on campus, but most regularly from the University Center.
Food materials diversion
A brief description of the food materials diversion program:
Used cooking oils are collected at our dining locations and picked-up by a vendor who processes it into fuel.
Composting
A brief description of the pre-consumer composting program:
All dining partners throughout campus have access to and are encourage to participate in the campus composting program by collecting and deposting pre-consumer food waste in the campus compost collection dumpsters.
Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a post-consumer composting program?:
A brief description of the post-consumer composting program:
The campus compost program offers public bins for disposing of food waste and compostables, which are collected by a local commercial composting vendor. Post-consumer collection bins are located at all dining facilities. In addition to dining locations, departments can opt-in to the composting program as well. There are more than 50 locations on campus with post-consumer food composting collection bins.
Dine-in service ware
A brief description of the reusable service ware program:
Schatz Dining room, the campus' only all-you-care-to-eat dining space, uses all reuseable service ware.
Take-away materials
A brief description of the compostable containers and service ware:
Dining partners serve meals in compostable containers, as supply allows, in all of its dining locations, which can be collected for composting in all dining locations.
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?:
A brief description of the reusable container discount or incentives program:
The Scotty Sips program offers discounts for individuals that bring their own reusable beverage mug or tumbler. This incentive is offered at each dining location where coffee and tea are sold.
Optional Fields
Website URL where information about the sustainable dining programs is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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.