For tools to help you get better food on your campus, see our Sustainable Campus Dining Resources page.
Campus dining services, like other institutional food-service operations, prepare large volumes of food every day, most of it the product of the industrialized food system. It is not grown sustainably, it undermines your health, destroys the natural ecosystems, and is often served in ways that produce large volumes of waste.
Recent studies have made clear that regenerative organic agriculture & agroecological practices are essential to solving the climate crises. (see ‘Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change – A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming‘, published by Rodale Institute.) Getting your dining services to serve this food is essential — not only for your health, but to mitigate the global climate disruption that threatens us all.
In addition many food providers do not respect FairTrade principles or insist that suppliers treat workers fairly; there even have been charges that working conditions for local employees are less than acceptable. Alliance interns are looking at the food system as a whole and at food service operations on their individual campuses.
- You Are What You Eat: ‘Impacts of Sustainable and Industrial Agriculture on Human Health‘, a research report by Moravian College student Codi Gauker that details harm from the food we eat
- Healthy Food for Healthy Communities, an analysis of how food, especially institutional food, impacts the sustainability & health of our communities
- Campus Food in the Lehigh Valley
- Fair Trade Universities & colleges
- United Students for Fair Trade [and the USFT blog]
Also see these other campus sustainability resources:
- An Open Letter to College & University Presidents
- Green Revolving Funds
- Endowment Investments with High Return & Ultra-Low Risk
- Commitment to Leadership in Campus Sustainability
- Internships:
- Campus Sustainability Internships
- Climate Action | Climate Action internship