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What sort of work have you done during your time at University of Richmond?
I've been at UR for 5 years and I started out managing ETC and the Dean's Den. During that time I also helped out with Concessions as needed. Then, about a year and a half ago, I took on the role of Director of Purchasing.
How has sustainability impacted your purchasing decisions in those different roles?
It's hard to be sustainable with convenience stores, but we tried to make positive changes wherever we could. We replaced single use creamers with bulk creamers in ETC, we try out more sustainable products like boxed water, we look for items with the least amount of plastic packaging, and we source from local vendors whenever possible. Just this past year we've added 16 new local vendors, so that does a lot to reduce the environmental impact of transporting products and it helps support our local economy. We're constantly asking ourselves how we can choose items that reduce packaging waste and, when we're able to, we'll return cardboard boxes to vendors or offer them to students at the end of the year for move out.
What drives the pursuit of sustainability in Dining Purchasing?
Our sustainability-related choices are motivated by people all over campus, whether it's the interest of our team, something that students care about, or a growing trend. Passport recently went strawless and that started because Karen, the manager, wanted to try it for Earth Day. Students responded so well, and straws had become such a big issue, that we decided to take straws out of Passport permanently. There's also a growing awareness of sustainability at UR and people are encountering sustainable practices like composting at local restaurants, so sustainability is becoming something that more people want to see on campus. At the end of the day, if our students are passionate about something, we'll try to make it happen.
What are a few of the most popular sustainable products that Dining Services offers?
People really love the strawless lids at Passport, like I said, but the reusable cups and thermoses at ETC have also been really popular. We actually recently switched to a company here in Richmond for all of those called Shine Craft Vessels. This year, we also started offering a blended burger in D-Hall. The burger is 60% beef and 40% mushrooms, so making each burger uses 200 fewer gallons of water and produces 39% less CO2 than an all-beef burger and people love the way they taste. Every week, the dining hall also features sustainable fish, which is a great opportunity to provide a more sustainable product and tell the story of sustainability and Dining.
How do you foresee sustainability influencing your work moving forward?
Sustainability has become much more of a priority over the past few years. It's an important consideration for us on all of our purchasing decisions and that wasn't always the case, so I think it's only going to get more important in the future. We already use a lot of compostable items in retail locations and for catering, but once composting comes to campus in a couple years, our use of compostable products will expand. It will also be important, as the University works towards its waste diversion goal, to address food waste more seriously. Besides all that, we also want to get better at staying ahead of sustainability issues, like with the concern around straws. We want to think about those kinds of issues and the changes we could make even before they're recognized as a big deal.
Outside of a UR context, how has sustainability played a role in your life?
I lived abroad for a while and that really impacted my understanding of sustainability. When I lived in Germany, there were three different kinds of recycling bins and just one landfill bin for each home, and the landfill waste was the only thing you had to pay to have collected. So they made it easy for people to do the right thing. Later I lived in Costa Rica for a couple years and my time there showed me how complicated sustainability can be. Costa Rica prides itself on environmental stewardship, and its tourism industry relies on it. They’re leaders in renewable energy, but I rarely saw recycling there. In many places you’d see homes with trash piled up outside, and pollution was bad in the city. So while there was a lot of good for sustainability happening, it didn't reach everyone, and it was definitely sending a mixed message.
Even here, sustainability is complicated. People come from different backgrounds and perspectives. Maybe they grew up recycling all the time or maybe they've never recycled at all. I think it's really important to take that into consideration, knowing that sustainability isn't the norm for everyone, as we move forward.
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