UBC Food System Project

Goal: 

Develop and pilot a scalable Climate-Friendly Food System (CFFS) label and operational framework, as a key first step towards advancing UBC's food system climate mitigation efforts.

Key Deliverables:

• Community-based “UBC Climate-Friendly Food System Definition”
• Methodology and Data Assessment Framework that assesses GHG emissions, nitrogen and water associated with campus menus
• Scalable Climate-Friendly Food System (CFFS) label launched to support informed purchasing choices 
• Multi-year evaluation of the perceptions and the impacts that labels have on awareness, knowledge and purchasing decisions
• Climate-Friendly Food System Toolkit

Goal:

Co-develop and inform the implementation of  campus-wide Climate-Friendly Food System Procurement Guidelines applicable to  food providers.

Key Deliverables: 

• Climate-Friendly Food System Procurement Strategy

Goal:

Promote a circular economy food system on campus and beyond.

Key Deliverables:  

• Food Waste Prevention, Reduction and Recovery Strategy
• ​Pre-consumer campus food waste baseline

• Quantification of GHG emissions and costs associated with pre-consumer food waste

• Over 2400 UBC undergraduate and graduate students across 30+ courses and co-curricular activities engaged in applied research to advance food system sustainability
   
• Over 600 student research reports that have informed demonstrable change in out campus food system

UBCFSP student-led research and partnerships produce tangible outcomes, including informing the development and implementation of UBC's operational sustainability and wellbeing policies, plans, and practices:

UBC Operational Sustainability & Wellbeing Plans and Policies:

• Informed the development of a diversity of UBC's food system sustainability strategies, plans and policies, including: UBC Zero Waste UBC Foodware Guidelines, Climate Action Plan 2010 - Food Area, Climate Action Plan 2030 - Food Areas, UBC's Food Action Framework, Fair Trade Campus, and AMS' Lighter Footprint Strategy and its most recent update as the AMS Sustainability Action Plan.
• Current collaborations are informing the development of UBC's Climate Action Plan 2030 food goals, targets, and actions, and contributing to an update of UBC's Green Building Action Plan, and the Residential Environmental Assessment Program (REAP)
• The SEEDS Climate-Friendly Food System Action Team and supporting student-led research directly informed the University’s commitment to climate action in our food system, including the development of a target and 7 supporting actions in the UBC Climate Action Plan 2030: Food System Areas 
• First set of food system targets embedded in a campus sustainability strategy - AMS Lighter Footprint Strategy
• Food Vision & Values: A multi-year partnership between UBC Food Services and Land and Food Systems 450 course annually baselines and provides recommendations to update Food Vision and Values to ensure continued leadership in campus food sustainability and wellbeing. Most recently research has informed UBCFS value of “Caring for and supporting our Planet” includes commitments to climate-friendly food systems, local food, zero waste and more. 

UBC Operational Sustainability & Wellbeing Practices: 

• The first formal agreement between campus food vendors and UBC Farm which resulted in local squash being added to students' pizzas and has since evolved to an expanded farm-to-institution partnership across both of the campus' main food providers
• The first partnership between between campus food providers and organic food distributors which saw the local organic apples being procured and then scaled out to other items  
• The first student-owned, building-scale composting system in Canada, as part of the AMS Nest’s commitment to sustainability 
• Behavioural and structural interventions that informed improvements in food waste sorting, reusable food ware items and programs, and biodegradable single-use items.
• The first “green-tax” on to-go containers at residence dining halls to reduce waste
• The first food waste measurement pre-consumer food waste baseline completed at the Open Kitchen
• The development of food recovery strategies with AMS and Food Services Sustainable food procurement, including the the first local organic fruit sold in campus residence dining halls to the expansion of other local food product procurement 
• UBC community-based “Climate-Friendly Food System Definition” developed an audit of campus food ware, that led to the development UBC’s Zero Waste Food Ware Strategy 
• The creation and development of the first campus food garden, and many others since then, and creation of a campus garden guidelines to help others start their own

Committees & Action Teams
Formalized governance structure includes a UBC Food System Project Steering Committee and supporting Action Teams who provide interdisciplinary expertise and guidance on food system related planning and practices, feedback on strategic priorities and initiatives and input on initiative progression.

Climate-Friendly Food Systems Action Team 

• The Climate-Friendly Food Systems Action Team (CFFS-AT) is a group of engaged experts from the UBCFSP Steering Committee and other partners who collaborate to inform applied student research and collaborations between staff, faculty and students that can accelerate transitions towards a climate-friendly food system and advance UBC’s Climate Action Plan 2030 Food Actions.

Circular Economy Research Action Team

• Forthcoming

Publications

• Over 600 student research reports published

Maps

• UBC Food System Asset Map 
  This map serves as a centralized platform that showcases food system and food security initiatives, resources, programming, research, and collaborations on the UBC Campus to advance a just and sustainable food system.
   
• Campus Food System Knowledge Networks Map
  This map provides centralized information about UBC people (practitioners, researchers, instructors, students), networks and initiatives connected to UBC’s Food System. This tool is to help people connect with others, and enable greater collaboration across our campus, bridging campus operations and academia.

Events

• In 2019, SEEDS and UBC Wellbeing co-hosted the first Action Research Symposium on the topic of food insecurity, which brought together staff, faculty, and students to share interdisciplinary research on the current state of student food insecurity, and to work together to identify opportunities to lead in addressing the challenges. The success of this knowledge exchange pilot can be seen in its contribution to the launching of the Food Security Initiative (see below). SEEDS has long been involved in developing campus food-growing gardens, whether it’s establishing food gardens in neighbourhoods and the academic campus, or directly informing the now-adopted procedures for setting up a new food garden on campus. The result can be seen in over 15 food-growing gardens by residents, staff, students, and faculty that serve the community as sites of research, teaching, learning, food growing, and social connection.

Resources

• Sustainable Campus Food Guide (2013)
  This was the first campus resource developed  to raise awareness and facilitate participation in sustainable food system initiatives on campus, and is currently being updated.