美食:客座厨师坦尼娅荷兰和Brian Muganda 24届MBA, a graduate student in the 经济与工商管理学院 / Nicole Sepulveda为SMC拍摄
Saint Mary’s Earns Top 10 National Recognition for Sustainable Food and 餐厅
刚和好饮食公司合作一年, SMC 倡议s focus on locally-sourced healthy food in a way that’s good for the planet.
Saint Mary’s College has earned a top 10 ranking nationally for its sustainable food and dining practices in the 2023可持续校园指数的年度刊物 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). The award is a nod toward increasingly robust sustainability 倡议s at SMC, 包括去年取得的重要进展.
The new index was released on September 14 and highlights top-performing colleges and universities overall and in 17 categories, 由AASHE测量 星星 (可持续发展跟踪), 评估和评级系统)程序, 一个供机构衡量的自我报告框架, 报告, 加强他们对全球可持续发展的贡献. 共有来自40个国家的900多名参与者, AASHE’s 星星 program is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly 报告ing comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance.
“It’s a great boost for all of us at Saint Mary’s to receive this recognition,” says 安Drevno博士，SMC可持续发展主任. “这需要真正的社区承诺, and Gaels and Good Eating Company should be proud of what we’ve accomplished together.”
地球伙伴关系
This latest national honor comes just a year after Saint Mary’s launched a new dining services partnership with The Good Eating Company, 以其厨师主导的烹饪实践而闻名, 可持续的原料, 以及从农场到餐桌的风气. The College has staked out strategic sustainability and climate action objectives for the next several years, and this partnership was formed to prioritize those goals regarding food and dining practices.
“这需要真正的社区承诺, and Gaels and Good Eating Company should be proud of what we’ve accomplished together.”
当 新的合作伙伴关系于2022年秋季宣布他是好饮食公司的西餐总监 艾米李 described their commitment to sustainable food systems: “Partnering and fostering relationships with local farms and suppliers sustains our culture and respect for where our food comes from, 我们的目标是通过这些实践来重建环境.”
良好的数字
When students and campus patrons sit down to eat in Oliver Hall or Café Louis or take food to go in their reusable clamshell containers, 39% of the food on their plate is now locally sourced and/or third-party verified to be ecologically sound, 公平和/或人道. 而三年前这一比例仅为3%.
The staggering increase in sustainable food sourcing is tracked through a program called Leanpath, which chefs and kitchen staff use to monitor and categorize the food coming in—if it’s local, 植物性, 或者第三方认证, 例如. They also use the software to track what’s trimmed and composted during prep—peels, 纸浆, 核, 皮, 和茎. Plans are in the works for more robust tracking of excess edible food, which is then donated. The company has an ambitious goal to reach 50% reduction in food waste by 2025.
好食物，好咖啡，还有更多
圣玛丽的学生已经注意到味道上的美味差异, 质量, 而且在过去的一年里变化很大. One of the most popular draws to the new dining partnership is the increased hands-on culinary explorations.
In September 2022, the Good Eating Company hosted internationally recognized “modern soul food” chef 坦尼娅荷兰 一场售罄的烹饪示范和食谱签名会. This past January, Saint Mary’s Office of Sustainability teamed up to bring 玛丽亚-帕拉西奥市第五代咖啡农, 创始人, and owner of Progeny Coffee Company—to campus for a dynamic talk in a Jan Term class on Eco Feminism. Palacio described growing up on a Colombian coffee farm and her “beyond fair trade” business philosophy. 之后，学生们排着队接受提问和对话, 包括至少一份在她的公司实习的申请.
今年5月, 全国蜜蜂日, the dining hall buzzed with activity during a beekeeping demonstration by Senior Executive Chef and Beekeeper 约瑟夫·马克思. Special guests for the day included bees from one of the three hives in the half-acre Legacy Garden on campus.
其他可持续的饮食习惯包括 greener-by-default 倡议, which makes 植物性 food the default while giving diners the choice to opt into meat and dairy. 好饮食公司也是一个积极的合作伙伴 更改菜单, which pairs a commitment to tasty dining options with optimal nutrition, 公共卫生, 环境管理和恢复, and social responsibility concerns within the foodservice industry and the culinary profession. 和一个新的伙伴关系 Topanga 将有助于扩大圣玛丽的可重复使用容器计划.
除了最新的认可，圣玛丽一直是一个 认证公平贸易校园 在过去的九年里. 在此期间, the College has also earned increasingly higher marks from AASHE for sustainability accomplishments overall, 从2020年开始从铜牌到银牌再到金牌. SMC has also been recognized by The Princeton Review in its guide to green colleges and included on a “Cool 学校” list in 塞拉 杂志，由塞拉俱乐部出版. 2023年春天, the College led a conversation for Lasallian universities around the world on how to leverage the global community to advance sustainability 倡议s.
“我们对在如此短的时间内取得的进展感到兴奋,可持续发展主任安·德雷夫诺说. “And we are excited to launch new programs that will take our commitment a step further in fostering a more just and sustainable agrifood system.”
阅读更多: 全面探索 2023可持续校园指数.
Saint Mary’s Achieves a Second Gold 星星 Rating for Sustainability Achievements
Lasallian Values, Global Connections: Saint Mary’s Leads Conversation on Sustainability