Sustainable catering at ETH: From student theses to a climate program

ETH Seed Sustainability and the WFSC came onboard to lead the project, which was largely based on research done in the context of Master thesis work in the “living lab” of the ETH canteens. Three interdisciplinary teams of students carried out their research developing and testing interventions aimed at (1) the climate effects of menus, (2) food waste, and (3) the health and environmental impacts of menus. Throughout the process, the ETH Catering Commission provided broad and strong support for the initiative, which created a promising opportunity: to initiate a transformation of the campus food system by creating a “living lab for sustainable campus catering.”

The final report of the project is now available, a joint publication of ETH Seed Sustainability (lead: Patrick Jiranek) and the WFSC (lead: Bastian Flury). In addition to the results from the students’ projects, the report takes further steps to introduce a Climate Program at ETH Zurich, with the goal of catering companies to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 10% in the next three years. Furthermore, the report also provides recommendations on how sustainability managers at other universities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions together with multiple catering partners. These recommendations recently attracted great attention at the 2017 Conference of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) in Vancouver.

With the research and recommendations in hand, development of a more extensive Sustainable Catering program for ETH Zurich is underway. In addition to climate impacts, this program should include other measures of sustainability, including animal welfare, health, water consumption, and fair working conditions. Seed Sustainability will continue to serve as a facilitator to achieve the implementation of these next steps.

Find out more about the Sustainable Catering project on the Seed Sustainability website.