Overall Rating	Silver - expired
Overall Score	57.65
Liaison	Michelle Seppala Gibbs
Submission Date	March 6, 2020

STARS v2.2

Hope College
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Status	Score	Responsible Party
	1.80 / 2.00	Dan Zehr Director of Residential and Retail Dining Creative Dining

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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?:

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

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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?:

A brief description of the sustainability-themed food outlet:

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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:

Hope College Dining Services purchases from 3 local suppliers. Simpatico Coffee, Palazzolo's Sorbet & Gellato, Crisp Country Acres Farm, Ferris Coffee & Nut, & Anu Sushi

Estimated percentage of total food and beverage expenditures on products from disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs:

73,550

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:

Dining services offers a wide variety of meatless options for our vegetarian and vegan consumers. These options are available 7 days per week and we now offer meatless options at our main venue every Monday. Hope Dining Services also participates daily in the national Protein Flip/Menu's of Change initiative in our dining halls.

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:

Hope College has a dedicated Chef who uses several recipe data base to create a daily vegan and vegetarian offering. In addition, a baked potato bar, rice / quinoa bar, fruit and vegetable bar, trademarked Dashi noodle bar, salad bar and vegan / vegetarian soup are offered.

Also in the Fall of 2019 a "Chef's Forum" session was be dedicated to Plant based Cuisine, perfect for vegans, vegetarians, or those interested in this style of food & preparation. Take away recipes and samples. Open to students, faculty & staff.

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:

Hope College Dining services has a distinct logo that is used to call attention to all of our vegan offerings. This is available on retail packaging as well as menu monitors in our residential dining program. The Coordinator of Media and Communications also promotes sustainability data and information on all campus t.v's

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?:

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

These are currently collected and composted but not tracked at this time.

Dining Services also partners with Alternative Energy Solutions to recycle our waste vegetable oil. Rather than paying a company to pick up this product, AES picks it up at no charge to the college and converts it to bio-diesel. They then use it to produce electricity for local needs.

Excess prepared food in good condition is donated to a local community kitchen on a daily basis. This organization opens their doors to anyone in the community in need of a meal and support.

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:

Hope College operates two dining halls, both of which are completely trayless as of 2010. The estimated amount of pre and post consumer food waste diverted from the landfill is 40 tons annually. Additionally, all post-consumer food waste is composted, but not tracked.

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:

Hope College Dining Services donates all extra food to two local food missions - the Holland Community Action House and the Holland City Mission. These groups use this food for their daily meal programs in the Holland, MI community.

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:

Dining services participates in composting from all of our kitchen and food production facilities along with converting used cooking oil to bio diesel.

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:

Hope College Dining Services composts 100% of their pre-consumer food waste. All food waste is collected during preparation, combined with other campus composting, and removed by Spurt industries.

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:

Hope College Dining Services composts all post-consumer food waste. All food waste filters through the dish rooms in the dining halls, where it is mulched to reduce volume by 50% and then placed in composting bins and later removed by Spurt industries, along with other composting on campus.

Dining Services uses environmentally friendly disposable products made of PLA (corn-based), potato, and pre- and post-consumer waste items.

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:

The two main dining halls offer reusable service ware on a daily basis. All single use food and beverage containers used on campus are certified compostable products. As of 2017, dining services began offering re-usable to-go containers to all staff, faculty, and qualifying students.

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:

The Kletz Snack Bar - an on-campus grab-and-go outlet and both dining halls offer reusable to-go containers on request. Students can use these containers for their meal and return them to the Kletz, where they are washed and reused. These containers are also available for purchase. As of 2017, dining services began offering re-usable to-go containers to all staff, faculty, and qualifying students.

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:

Hope College offers students, staff, and faculty the option of purchasing reusable containers for both food and beverages. Beverage refills using these containers are offered at a discount.

Optional Fields

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

In April of 2020 in partnership with the Hope Advocates for Sustainability Creative Dining will be launching "Meatless Mondays" as a way to engage the campus community in vegetarian/vegan food opportunities. There will still be a couple of meat options, but the plant based foods will be more accessible and signage will encourage these types of selections.

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

https://creativedining.com/a-better-world/

Additional documentation to support the submission:

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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Other information about our programs can be found at:
https://creativedining.com/a-better-world/

Knowing that everyone grows differently, Grow™ is designed to be a flexible menu of sustainability initiatives from which our clients can select those that are the right fit for their dining operation.
Creative Dining Services’ initiatives in this category include:
Responsible food sourcing
Purchasing items grown, manufactured or produced within 150 miles of our clients’ locations.
Participation in Community Sustained Agriculture (CSA) shares for procurement of farm-direct produce.
Purchasing seafood with a Seafood Watch Good or Best choice designation.
Purchasing only cage-free shell eggs.
Offering Small producer, non-CAFO* animal proteins.
Offering USDA Organic foodstuffs.
Delivering comprehensive waste management: food pulping, recycling, commercial composting, food waste tracking and food rescue.
Providing alternative disposable serviceware: full lines of take-out utensils and containers constructed from renewable sources such as corn, potatoes and natural fibers, intended for commercial composting.
Providing greener paper products: non-bleached, high post-consumer recycled content products for tabletop, rest rooms and housekeeping.
Offering a portfolio of USDA Organic, Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade and direct trade coffees and teas, from nationally recognized brands and local roasters.
Utilizing Green Seal™ and Design for the Environment approved chemicals.
Planting organic herb and vegetable chef gardens.
Setting up and managing honey bee apiaries and pollinator gardens.
Performing a comprehensive hospitality equipment audit, maintenance schedule and capital equipment planning.
Sourcing of Energy Star® kitchen equipment and sustainable materials, aiding in LEED® qualifying points.
Providing LEED® Hospitality Design
Providing LEED® Accredited Professional Kitchen and Servery Design

farmSTEAD™ is prescribed path programming, engaging Creative Dining Services’ accounts with local and regional growers, producers and foodhubs that do not have distributorship through our primary and secondary-vendor partnerships. This includes family-owned and small co-operative growers operating as CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and direct farm-to-institution sales, delivering directly to our account locations.

farmSTEAD™ programming outlines our company’s intentions, purchasing policy and regulatory documentation required to achieve an approved vendor status with Creative Dining Services.
Most importantly, food safety is critical to our organization. A secure supply chain will not be compromised. It is imperative that any potential vendor, regardless of size, can demonstrate the ability to deliver safe product to Creative Dining Services.

At Creative Dining Services we have developed our Trashed™ program to reduce food waste at all our locations.
The highest priority in this program is source reduction. Several best practices are employed to achieve this goal, including inventory accuracy, organized storerooms and walk-ins, a consistent labeling and dating system, and practicing FIFO: First-In-First-Out with food goods.

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.