Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.46
Liaison Paul Mathisen
Submission Date May 22, 2020
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.79 / 6.00 Paul Mathisen
Dir. of Sustainability & Assoc. Prof
Civil & Environmental Engineering
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

This credit requires:

  • A completed STARS Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory
  • An itemized inventory based on output from the Real Food Calculator, or
  • An alternative inventory that includes for each product:
    • Product vendor
    • Product label/brand
    • Product description
    • The category in which the product qualifies (Third Party Verified or Local & Community Based)
    • Information justifying inclusion: the standards met if the product is third party verified; ownership, size, distance, production methods for Local & Community Based products 

Part 1

Third Party Verified and Community Based Products

Percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on products that are third party verified under one or more recognized food and beverage sustainability standards or Local & Community-Based:
15

Part 2

Animal Products 

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on conventional animal products)? (If data is not available, respond “No”):
Yes

Percentage of total dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional animal products (meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, and dairy products that do NOT qualify in either the Third Party Verified or Local & Community-Based category):
60

Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory

Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

A brief description of the sustainable food and beverage purchasing program, including how the sustainability impacts of products in specific categories are addressed (e.g. meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, dairy, produce, tea/coffee):
*Chartwells, WPI contract dining service, purchases foods with zero trans fats, renewable packaging, certified humane/cage free shell eggs, rBGH free milk, social and ecological certified coffee, foods that are grown locally whenever possible, poultry and meats produced without the routine use of human antibiotics, is a member of the Sustainable Oceans Partnership and participates in waste reduction programs. *Chartwells also offers Balanced U, a labeling system that lets people know how what they're eating contributes to sustainable eating habits.*Morgan Dining, the main dining hall, is tracking its monthly carbon foodprint (for Residential Dining) via a Compass software program.

An inventory of the institution’s sustainable food and beverage purchases that includes for each product: the description/type; label, brand or producer; and the category in which it is being counted and/or a description of its sustainability attribute(s):
A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):
Please also see files in Notes field below. Chartwells purchase systems gives them the ability to assign a general ledger code in the accounts payable records for all product types.

If uploading output from the Real Food Calculator, provide:

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
0

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
0

Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

Which of the following food service providers are present on campus and included in the total food and beverage expenditure figures?:
Present? Included?
Dining operations and catering services operated by the institution Yes Yes
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor Yes Yes
Student-run food/catering services No No
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) Yes No
Convenience stores Yes No
Vending services Yes No
Concessions No No

Optional Fields 

A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :
appx. $95,000 food and beverage purchases in categories of : MBay Green and Yellow, HFCA Certified, Rainforest Alliance,USDA Organic, MSC, Fair trade, and $35,000 Rbgh Free

Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
0

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
sustainability category food purchases also include: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CoPm9ZD0abyShSxk3MFDNxRR1Aq7BG_n/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_-9JZ7_oFI7jYHWMt6buoni5YlD9kWbA/view?usp=sharing

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.