Sustainable UMass
This Thursday, Jane, the Purchasing Manager of Auxiliary Services and I went to talk to students of the Sustainable Living class. It was on what UMass Dining has done to embrace sustainability and what are some of our future goals and objectives. I always enjoy speaking in public and do it regularly for presentations to parents during the New Students Program in the summer. But this time was a bit different, because we had to speak to a large group of students who might have or might have not known about UMass Dining. We were told beforehand that it is a big and popular class. Professor John Gerber of Plant Sciences and Sustainability Studies is a guru for promoting sustainable living and sustainable agriculture. He encourages his students to explore personal growth and community responsibility, besides just learning, as he calls it transformational knowledge. This was our second time being invited to his class; John is also a member of the Environmental Performance Advisory Committee on Food, which I chair.
It was an unusually warm afternoon when we arrived for the class in an auditorium; one of his TAs started the class by leading the students in a “centering breath” exercise. The purpose of the exercise (which most students seemed to appreciate) was to invite one’s mind, body and spirit into the room. Next the class commenced with an electronic poll questioning how many students ate at the Dining Commons during the last few days, and not surprisingly, 80% of them were are customers. That made our presentation more relevant or even put more pressure on us since the majority of the people in the audience were both students and customers. We told them about our slow food movement at UMass Dining, buying local, using sustainable seafood, being trayless, and practicing the 3Rs. We mentioned that as the 3rd largest university operated dining services in the nation, we have a responsibility to combat global climate change and to fulfill the university goals of attaining carbon neutrality by working together with the university community and students. UMass Dining serves 40,000 meals daily and with 14,000 students on the meal plan, we can achieve a lot by working together.
We also announced plans to have a veggie garden and second herb garden on campus, in partnership with students, the Physical Plant and faculty members. The land will be supervised and managed by UMass Dining. There is a big push to ban water bottle on campus and we are committed to making it happen someday but it will be in a gradual manner. The class also finished with a poll, asking the students if they thought UMass should remove bottled water and the majority said yes. Several students that attended the class stopped me at the DCs later and told me how much they appreciate our environment initiatives.
The journey of greener UMass is on going and we need your support and feedback.
This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top
Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu
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