Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 65.36
Liaison Ian Johnson
Submission Date June 8, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Colorado College
IN-3: Innovation 3

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Ian Johnson
Sustainability Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Title or keywords related to the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome:
Care and Share Zero-Waste Program

A brief description of the innovative policy, practice, program, or outcome:

The Care and Share Zero-Waste Program is a partnership between the Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado and Colorado College. The Care and Share mission is to provide food, partnering opportunities, and education to combat hunger and food insecurity in Southern Colorado communities. The Zero-Waste program is dedicated to coming up with innovative strategies to divert all waste the comes as a result of processing food at Care and Share from a landfill. The Office of Sustainability at Colorado College employs an intern to work specifically on this project to develop these channels for waste diversion. The goals of the program are to manage recyclables for sale to local vendors, design a program to optimize farmer relationships, research and implement best practices for handling waste food and partnering with farmers, and develop a disseminable model for Care and Share's affiliates. In exchange for the time and money investment, Colorado College receives the rights to any carbon offsets that can be quantified from the diversion of landfill waste. The partnership is innovative in that it creates mutually beneficial outcomes for the parties involved by fostering community development that addresses social justice and inequality, creation of revenue streams from previous waste streams, reducing environmental impacts through waste diversion, and by allowing the college to create literacy around and benefit from additional carbon reductions through their involvement in the project.


A brief description of any positive measurable outcomes associated with the innovation (if not reported above):

The Care and Share Zero-Waste Program hopes to ultimately become an integrated system diverting all waste from landfills. Colorado College will receive carbon reductions toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2020 as Care and Share and Colorado College work in tandem towards the goal of zero-waste.


A letter of affirmation from an individual with relevant expertise:
Which of the following STARS subcategories does the innovation most closely relate to? (Select all that apply up to a maximum of five):
Yes or No
Curriculum ---
Research ---
Campus Engagement ---
Public Engagement Yes
Air & Climate Yes
Buildings ---
Dining Services ---
Energy ---
Grounds ---
Purchasing ---
Transportation ---
Waste Yes
Water ---
Coordination, Planning & Governance ---
Diversity & Affordability ---
Health, Wellbeing & Work ---
Investment ---

Other topic(s) that the innovation relates to that are not listed above:
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The website URL where information about the innovation is available:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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