Wilfrid Laurier University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Through Green Thread, our environmental sustainability platform, we bring innovative and efficient solutions to life. We help our employees and customers minimize environmental impacts in our operations and in our communities. We place special emphasis on responsible sourcing, waste minimization, efficient operations, and transportation management. But we don’t stop there. We measure our impact and hold ourselves accountable to continuously improve. RESPONSIBLE SOURCING: We purchase local, seasonal and responsibly raised, grown and sourced products whenever possible. We firmly believe responsible sourcing has a direct impact on our local and global economies, our health and wellness and the environment. With every purchase we engage suppliers and partners in an effort to source environmentally and socially responsible products. WASTE MINIMIZATION: We minimize our waste by reducing, reusing and recycling. We minimize our footprint through our waste reduction efforts. Across our operations, we have established practices from initial purchase to final waste disposal that decrease the overall cost of waste both environmentally and financially. EFFICIENT OPERATIONS: We implement practices to conserve natural resources and ensure operational efficiencies. Fueled by the understanding that our day-to-day actions have an impact, we work closely with our clients to conserve energy and water. TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT: We ensure our transportation programs reduce fuel usage and emissions. Transportation provides a vital circulation system that enables delivery of the highest quality product and service. With our vehicle fleet of thousands, it’s essential for us to minimize our use of fossil fuels and generation of emissions.

Veritas Cafe Garden Veritas Café, the graduate student café on campus, planted an organic garden in the quad in front of the café’s patio. The garden was planted in May 2016 with another garden planned for outside of the Waterloo campus Wellness Centre spring 2017. This garden was used to grow fresh produce to be served in the café.

At Laurier's Waterloo campus at Northdale (66 Hickory Street West) we have a 14,000 square foot urban micro farm. Through our partnership with the community group, Young City Growers (YCG) we are able to offer students, faculty, and staff weekly bushels of fresh, home-grown produce during the harvest season through a Laurier Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Laurier's Northdale community garden project is well under way this season under the advisory of YCG. YCG works to increase participant's knowledge and skills of organics farming, environmental stewardship, local food systems, and entrepreneurial skills in operating a CSA micro-urban farm. Visit the YCG CSA market at Laurier and get your weekly veggie basket! Laurier also hosts a urban garden plot on the Northdale Campus, which is run by Patchwork Community Gardens and KW Urban Harvesters.

Dedicated vegetarian and vegan station are available daily at our residence dining hall which is open to the campus community.

Through the school year we host meatless events, focusing on our dedicated stations for vegetarians and vegans. Educate on the importance of plant based proteins. We also do sampling of new menu items to promote plant based diets to all students, items such as Cauliflower Wings and Vegan Smoothies

Through the school year we have local food days in our residence dining hall, educating students on the local products being served on campus. We also incorporate local food into our on campus catering. An example in November 2017 we executed an event with Laurier Global with a menu exclusively focused on local food for Sustainable Development Goals campus event

We have two coffee shops on campus that are unique to the Laurier Campus, with the sole focus of serving 100% Fair Trade Coffee and Tea to the campus community. Veritas Cafe is the on campus home for many graduate students. Nestled in the heart of Waterloo Campus, the cafe offers a fresh and flexible dining experience to the Laurier community. Veritas seeks to support and provide as many local and fresh food options as possible. Veritas was also just names a Living Wage Champion by a local organization for it's progressive practice of ensuring all it's employees a living wage.

On campus we promote on our screens or signage the following initatives: Labelling of vegan and vegetarian dishes, MSC Seafood Source Local Food when possible , vacuum seal local produce to use throughout the year, Organic Waste Program, Fair Trade Campus Program, Reusable Dishes & Cutlery - No Takeout Residence Dining Hall, Local Food Days, Trayless Dining on campus, Bottleless Beverages Residence Dining Hall, EcoLogo Certified Biodegradable Napkins, compostable plates and cutlery

FAIR TRADE CAMPUS Fair trade is a label that allows you to identify products that empower marginalized producers to improve their own living conditions. With the proper resources, capacity, and access to key relationships, disadvantaged producers are able to earn their own means to a better life for themselves and their communities. At Laurier you support producers by purchasing Fairtrade products at the following locations: Coffee: Fresh Food Company (Waterloo, Dining Hall) Union Market (Waterloo, Terrace Food Court) BYTE75 Coffee and Social (Waterloo, Lazaridis Hall) Wilf's Restaurant (Waterloo, Fred Nichols Campus Centre) Veritas Cafe (Waterloo, GSA) Golden Grounds (Brantford, RAC) Catering (Waterloo and Brantford) Tea: Fresh Food Company (Waterloo, Dining Hall) BYTE75 Coffee and Social (Waterloo, Lazaridis Hall) Wilf's Restaurant (Waterloo, Fred Nichols Campus Centre) Golden Grounds (Brantford, RAC) Veritas Cafe (Waterloo, GSA) Golden Grounds (Brantford, RAC) Catering (Waterloo and Brantford) Chocolate: Union Market (Waterloo, Terrace Food Court) BYTE75 Coffee and Social (Waterloo, Lazaridis Hall) Other: Veritas Cafe (Waterloo, GSA): Little Miracles Organic Fusion Bottled Tea URBAN MICRO FARM A 14,000 square foot urban micro farm is situated on Laurier's Waterloo campus at Northdale. Through Laurier's partnership with Young City Growers (YCG) we are able to offer students, faculty, and staff weekly bushels of fresh, home-grown produce during the harvest season through a Laurier Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Laurier's Northdale community garden project is well under way this season under the advisory of YCG. YCG works to increase participant's knowledge and skills of organics farming, environmental stewardship, local food systems, and entrepreneurial skills in operating a CSA micro-urban farm. URBAN GARDEN PLOT Laurier also hosts a urban garden plot on the Northdale Campus, which is run by Patchwork Community Gardens and KW Urban Harvesters. Our food service provider, Aramark, works to create positive experiences and environments that enable people and organizations to thrive. They’re a group of passionate and dedicated individuals working across functional areas of health & wellness, environment & sustainability, culinary, marketing, supply chain, and operations to continue to provide innovative solutions to improve the health of our communities, and to tread a little lighter on the earth. They share their journey towards healthier and more sustainable menus and communities with you through our Healthy for Life program. Aramark posts stories and articles about what we and our community partners are doing to help us all live a good life. Follow the link below to learn more about current initiatives and how they strive to better themselves every day. http://www.liveitgood.ca/News.html

Promote health and wellness events throughout the year using Aramark Dietiatians to do educational booths such as portion control, sugar, importance of fibre and pulses education awareness.

Aramark uses the LeanPath system for waste management. LeanPath employs the latest technology to measure and record organic waste and enables us to set targets based the most accurate and consistent data.The reports generated by the system will even make recommendations based on certain trends, over-production of certain items and at certain stations in order to minimize the potential for waste right from the point of production.

Laurier's dining services have greatly reduced the number of trays on campus. Trays are not made available in the main dining facility unless specifically requested, and only 2 of the 9 franchises make them available to patrons.

Surplus and leftover foods from Laurier's main food service provider are donated to the Waterloo Community Food Bank.

Aramark works on a 4 week rotating food schedule. All meals are measured and monitored to track amounts eaten, and adjustments are made to ensure more accurate portions during the next 4 week period. All pre-consumer food scraps are weighed, tracked and then composted.

All Laurier food areas at the Waterloo and Kitchener campuses have public area composting, which are a part of the recycling centers. Additionally, department areas have also been outfitted with recycling and organics centers. Laurier has an organics map which highlights all the composting stations and has been made available to all students participating in the residence composting program.

Laurier's main dinning hall uses only reusable service wares (metal utensils and ceramic dishware) for all dine-in meals.

Laurier's Eco-tainer program is available for all staff, students, and faculty. These reusable takeout containers can be obtained after presenting a one-time purchased Eco-card at any of the participating on-campus food service locations. The Eco-card is available for only $5 and never expires. Once the users are done with their container, they are returned unwashed to participating on-campus food service locations at which point the student is presented with another card to be used during their next visit.

Discount for using a reusable travel mugs when purchasing a hot beverage is a minimum of 0.40 at all coffee vendors across our campus. First year students are provided access to our eco-container program for free.

Aramark: Energy & Water Conservation: We train our employees each semester on common energy and water conservation practices in order to conserve precious natural resources.