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This research evaluates the impact of the Sustainable Mondays initiative on reducing carbon emissions from purchased food in various University of Michigan dining halls. The study identifies the dining halls with the highest and lowest emissions reductions and provides recommendations for MDining to make Sustainable Mondays more consistent, effectively communicate emissions information, investigate student attitudes, and explore carbon positive farming and offsets. The research also suggests addressing emissions not eliminated by meat reduction through climate positive dairy production and carbon offsets.
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By Krysten Dorfman & Cameron Clark A practicum submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science School for Environment & Sustainability In the University of Michigan April 2020 Client: Alex Bryan Michigan Dining Advisor: Joseph Trumpey SEAS and Stamps School of Art & Design
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We would like to thank the following individuals for their support, consultation, guidance and collaboration in this project: Joe Trumpey Alex Bryan Melanie Reid (and the rest of the MDining Systems team) Caroline Baloga Rachel Lowry Keith Soster Claire Haase Jocelyn Marchyok Dominique Williams Nathalie Lambrecht Victoria Campbell-Arvai Julia Wondolleck Avik Basu
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Abstract ............................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements .........................................................................................iv Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Background....................................................................................................... 3 Methods ............................................................................................................. 5 Results............................................................................................................... 7 Recommendations for Sustainable Mondays .............................................. 15 Further Recommendations ............................................................................ 19 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 24 References ...................................................................................................... 25
lives and raise their families there. These strong personal relationships give colleges and universities the ability to communicate messages about values and beliefs. Because of these relationships, having a visible, directional commitment to reducing greenhouse gasses is also crucial. Dining halls are often on the front lines of student and prospective-student influence; first-year students eat a majority of their meals in halls, and visiting students and parents are frequently wooed with dining experiences. By helping MDining to leverage its platform to take demonstrable strides toward carbon neutrality, these values and beliefs of sustainability and systems thinking can be modeled by individuals long after their time at the University of Michigan. Additionally, the threat of climate change makes the call for leadership from universities even more urgent. The 2018 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that society has eleven years to limit global warming to 1.5°C, beyond which the frequency and severity of drought, floods, extreme heat, and climate-related poverty will dramatically increase (Watts, 2018). University of Michigan has shown recognition of this need with the UM Carbon Neutrality Pledge, and with the establishment of the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality to provide recommendations on how to reach this goal. However, when it comes to making real progress towards these goals, there are significant logistical challenges. Many of these challenges involve a large number of stakeholders, spread across campus as well as beyond it, and require getting them to work together towards a common goal. In the case of Michigan Dining, there are many stakeholders and strategies to consider on the road to carbon neutrality. This project involved analyzing the impact of one of MDining’s most prominent sustainability strategies to this point, Sustainable Mondays, and making recommendations for how this initiative can be leveraged to further MDining’s mission toward carbon neutrality. The research then shifted to look beyond Sustainable Mondays and provide recommendations on how MDining could reduce emissions not addressed by existing initiatives. The overall goal for this project was to share practical suggestions to guide MDining’s next steps towards carbon neutrality, and to supply future research teams with a jumping-off point for their work.
More than simply analyzing the Sustainable Mondays program, this study attempted to ground itself in MDining’s current sustainability efforts, both in regard to their overall sustainability initiatives and in comparison to peer institutions. The following insights highlight broad objectives and best practices for carbon-reduction initiatives at Michigan and other universities in order to contextualize Sustainable Mondays within the broader landscape of programming. It does not appear that any other institution has implemented a completely carbon-neutral plan, however several colleges and universities have reduction measures in place. Boston University, for example, operates a “Low-carbon Dining” (Boston University, n.d.) initiative broadly, with focus on lower-impact proteins, certifications, and behavioral interventions like signage and plating. Outwardly called the Wholesome Roots program, it places strong emphasis on increasing the number of plant-based meals, reducing emissions tied to production rather than transportation, and seasonality. The Wholesome Roots program is supplemented by in-person educational events in dining halls. Of particular interest is BU’s current creation of a labelling system for low-carbon foods to be used in their dining halls and retail cafes. Princeton University has already created such a system (Princeton University, 2019). Their system, which uses a “stop-light” scheme of green- yellow-red to symbolize low, medium, and high carbon food choices in dining halls, was created using results from a study that investigated food distance, feed, production, waste, and habitat damage. Their website outlines steps taken to reduce emissions for “red” foods like beef and lamb, noting that organically-fed livestock are prioritized. Such a scheme could be organized for Michigan’s halls as well, and relates to the behavior-change recommendations shared later in this report. Oberlin College’s sustainability and carbon initiatives (Oberlin College,
To determine how to navigate MDining towards carbon neutrality, the first step was understanding existing MDining initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of purchased food. The primary MDining initiative working towards this goal is Sustainable Mondays, which began in Fall of 2017 and involved reducing the amount of meat served on Mondays at the nine dining halls across the Ann Arbor campus (Stuart, 2018). To assess the impact of the Sustainable Mondays initiative, we combined existing research on the carbon emissions of various food items with MDining data on each dining hall’s food use. The research we relied on for our carbon emissions estimates was a study by Heller et al. (2018), which involved an exhaustive review of food life cycle analysis (LCA) studies that were incorporated into a food impacts database. As part of this effort, Heller et al. (2018) determined the estimated greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) produced per kilogram of 330 different food products (Supplementary data, Table S4). For example, using their review of LCA studies they estimated that 0.470 kg CO2 eq are emitted for every one kilogram of tomatoes produced (Heller et al, 2018). We applied these estimated GHGE values to the MDining data by labeling each of the items in the MDining dataset as one of those 330 different food products (referred to as emissions products). We also chose to label each item in the MDining dataset with a broader food category (referred to as emissions category) so that the total emissions could be grouped in more meaningful ways (i.e. “vegetables” instead of every kind of vegetable included). Those categories were mostly borrowed from the Heller et al (2018) study as well, with some changes to provide more specific totals on the emissions from different animal products (i.e. beef, pork, etc. instead of meats, and liquid dairy and solid dairy instead of dairy). The MDining dataset we used was put together with the help of the MDining Systems team. We chose to use data from the 2018-2019 academic year because it was the most recent full academic year with Sustainable Mondays in place. We pulled weekly data reports for each of the nine dining halls, using the recipes scheduled to be served each day to estimate the exact amount of each food item that would have been needed. Actual food purchases did not happen this way, but this approach allowed us to avoid the issues that would arise from using actual purchasing data. For example, an entire month’s supply of canned tomatoes might be purchased on a single day but are not representative of the meals served that day. This initial dataset was too large for us to label in a reasonable amount of time, so we also chose to focus on comparing Mondays and Wednesdays only. Mondays were when the Sustainable Mondays initiative took place, and because many classes at the University are either scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and
Thursdays, Wednesdays seemed like they would be the most similar to Mondays and therefore the best option to draw a comparison. With the data limited in this manner, we were looking at the food items from 32 Mondays and 32 Wednesdays across the 2018-2019 academic year, with 16 weeks of data from the Fall semester and 16 weeks of data from the Winter semester. Since the dining halls all rely on the same ordering system, we were able to identify around 1700 unique food items that were a part of this reduced dataset. We went through each of these items and assigned them an emissions product and emissions category, which allowed us to assign the values from Heller et al (2018) and calculate estimated GHGE. The MDining Systems team also provided the number of MCard swipes for each Monday and Wednesday at seven of the nine dining halls, which is a good indication of how many people ate at the dining hall on a given day and allowed us to estimate the GHGE per visitor. The next step in providing recommendations involved broadening our view from the Sustainable Mondays initiative to look at MDining as a whole. Personal correspondence with MDining staff, a summer internship working for MDining, coursework on food sustainability and environmental behavior change, and research into approaches taken by other universities and institutions provided a broader context for the analysis of the Sustainable Mondays initiative. These experiences and approaches were used to develop the recommendations found in this report.
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 Monday Wednesday Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent Dining Hall Monday Wednesday Difference Percent Change East Quad 119,965 218,174 - 98,209 - 45.0% Bursley 353,072 336,376 16,696 5.0% South Quad 539,618 578,338 - 38,721 - 6.7% Twigs (Oxford) 49,978 54,905 - 4,927 - 9.0% North Quad 134,237 124,443 9,794 7.9% Mosher Jordan (Hill) 261,269 402,930 - 141,662 - 35.2% Markley 73,094 71,232 1,862 2.6% Martha Cook 18,251 22,180 - 3,929 - 17.7% Law Club 36,124 40,769 - 4,645 - 11.4% Total 1,585,607 1,849,347 - 263,741 - 14.3% Figure 1. Estimated Total GHGE, Monday VS Wednesday Table 1. Estimated Total GHGE by Dining Hall, Monday VS Wednesday. Totals are expressed in kilograms of CO2 equivalent.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 East Quad Bursley South Quad Twigs (Oxford) North Quad Mosher Jordan (Hill) Markley Martha Cook Law Club Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent Monday Wednesday Beef 37% Dairy 17% Chicken & Poultry 9% Eggs 7% Fish and Seafood 5% Pork 5% Lamb/Sheep/Goat 2% Fruits and Vegetables 9% Fats and Sugars 3% Grains and Cereals 3% Beverages and Other 2% Legumes, Pulses, Nuts, and Seeds 1% Plant-Based Products 18% Figure 2. Estimated Total GHGE by Dining Hall, Monday VS Wednesday Figure 3. Wednesday GHGE Proportions by Broad Category
South Quad is also reflected in their overall emissions numbers, with East Quad reducing emissions 45% on Mondays while South Quad reduced emissions 6.7% (Table 1). However, despite that gap, South Quad’s total reduction in emissions (almost 39 metric tons CO2eq) is nearly 40% of the total reduction from East Quad (over 98 metric tons CO2eq) (Table 1). The difference in the scale of operations at East Quad and South Quad is important to note in this case. South Quad serves more visitors than East Quad (Table 2), and its Wednesday emissions total over 578 metric tons CO2eq while South Quad’s total is just over 218 metric tons CO2eq (Table 1). Although the number of visitors served does not completely account for this difference, the data shows that reductions in the amount of beef served at a high-volume dining hall like South Quad can have a big influence on MDining’s overall emissions. Mosher-Jordan dining hall presents another interesting comparison because its operations fell somewhere in-between those of East Quad and South Quad. Mosher-Jordan’s implementation of Sustainable Mondays was definitely closer to that of East Quad, with a huge reduction in beef and other ruminants served on Mondays (Figure 7). However, emissions from chicken and seafood went up on Mondays, a sign that those items may have been taking the place of beef (Figure 7). Mosher-Jordan also served more visitors than East Quad, although not as many as South Quad (Table 2), and was still able to reduce emissions 35.2% on Mondays (Table 1). This was a total reduction of nearly 142 metric tons CO2eq, easily the biggest total reduction among the nine dining halls and more than half of MDining’s total reduction in emissions (Table 1). Mosher- Jordan is an excellent example of the impact the Sustainable Mondays initiative can have when it is more fully implemented in a large dining hall.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Beef Dairy (solid) Chicken Egg Pork Vegetables Dairy (liquid) Fruits Grains and Cereals^ Fish and Seafood Oils and Fats Poultry Beverages Sugars and sweeteners Legumes and Pulses Lamb/sheep/goat Other Nuts and seeds Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent Sum of Monday GHGE Sum of Wednesday GHGE 0 50 100 150 200 250 Beef Dairy (solid) Egg Chicken Fish and Seafood Vegetables Fruits Dairy (liquid) Pork Grains and Cereals Oils and Fats Lamb/sheep/goat Poultry Beverages Legumes and Pulses Sugars and sweeteners Other Nuts and seeds Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent Sum of Monday GHGE Sum of Wednesday GHGE Figure 5. Estimated East Quad GHGE by Food Category, Monday VS Wednesday Figure 6. Estimated South Quad GHGE by Food Category, Monday VS Wednesday
Totals do not include any data from the Martha Cook or Law Club dining halls It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study and the results presented above. In addition to the uncertainties described in the Heller et al (2018) study, which provided the base estimates for our study, this research involved many other assumptions. Those included simplifying each food item in the MDining dataset to a single ingredient, labeling and categorizing items that did not line up perfectly with the food products used by Heller et al (2018), and using menu data to estimate the food items required in the dining halls each day. One example of the challenges that came with imperfect methods was the labelling of blended burgers as “beef”. Many of the dining halls use blended burgers that are still predominantly beef, but include mushroom as well so that the total quantity of beef is reduced. This initiative is intended to help reduce emissions, yet is not accurately captured in the data presented in this report. These imprecisions are consistent across all the dining halls, so it is still helpful to draw comparisons and look at overarching trends, but the data presented should be considered well-informed estimates rather than perfect quantifications. Dining Hall Monday Swipes Wednesday Swipes Monday GHGE Wednesday GHGE Monday Per Capita Wednesday Per Capita East Quad 118625 116162 119965 218174 1.01 1. Bursley 95716 99038 353072 336376 3.69 3. South Quad 175099 169989 539618 578338 3.08 3. Twigs (Oxford) 21851 20504 49978 54905 2.29 2. North Quad 54804 51587 134237 124443 2.45 2. Mosher Jordan (Hill) 142376 140373 261269 402930 1.84 2. Markley 43255 41835 73094 71232 1.69 1. Martha Cook No Data No Data 18251 22180 No Data No Data Law Club No Data No Data 36124 40769 No Data No Data Total 651726 639488 1531232 1786398 2.35 2. Table 2. Estimated Per Capita GHGE by Dining Hall, Monday VS Wednesday. Totals are expressed in kilograms of CO2 equivalent.
The analysis of Sustainable Mondays indicated a successful reduction in carbon emissions from purchased food, however, the degree of success varied widely among the dining halls. While Mosher-Jordan and East Quad’s Monday- to-Wednesday carbon reductions of 35% and 45% respectively are sizable, the scattering of lower reductions and even small increases in other halls highlights the patchwork of potential for the rest of the MDining system. With such stark reductions only occurring in some halls on one day of the week, how can MDining improve upon this initiative? Below, three primary recommendations are outlined to address such disparities in carbon reduction and expand on the success of Sustainable Mondays’ initial run:
1. Make Sustainable Mondays implementation more consistent across all dining halls The first recommendation is to adopt a consistent, system-wide approach to implementation of Sustainable Mondays that every dining hall would adhere to. When Sustainable Mondays began in 2018, the specifics of operations were left to the discretion of individual dining hall managers, who were given broad instruction to simply reduce the amount of meat served on Mondays. An example of how two different interpretations of this played out are evident in East Quad’s Monday-Wednesday emissions compared to South Quad’s. Although South Quad’s overall emissions for Mondays were lower than Wednesdays, the magnitude of their reduction was under a sixth that of East Quad’s (6.7% compared to 45%). Looking into food category-specific emissions, the primary suspect in this disparity becomes clear. While East Quad showed complete elimination of beef and significantly lower chicken and pork offerings from Mondays’ menu, South Quad’s marginal reduction of beef was accompanied by increased chicken and pork. While South Quad did reduce the most carbon-intense meat it offered on Mondays, East Quad reduced all meats and completely eliminated the most carbon-intense (beef and other ruminants). This example highlights the opportunity in dining halls with modest Monday reductions to experiment with more pronounced menu changes, particularly reducing the amount of beef served. These dining halls show potential for substantially higher emissions reductions and can use Mosher-Jordan and East Quad as models for how to attain those reductions. Under this recommendation, MDining should provide specific benchmarks and/or best practices to hall managers in order to streamline Sustainable Mondays implementation, and ultimately, outcomes. By providing comprehensive
