Oakland University and OU Eats recently became the first university and first institution in North America to be certified in The PLEDGE on Food Waste. They received Gold Level Scoring.
The PLEDGE is a third-party certifying institution aiming to reduce food waste and save on costs.
The PLEDGE also supports the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — to create a world free of hunger, ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns and take action to combat climate change.
Resident District Manager of Chartwells, Evol Gazzarato says it is “amazing” for OU to receive this award.
“It really shows that we [at OU] are serious about our sustainability efforts,” Gazzarato said. “It’s not just talk — we’re actually putting those efforts into action. Hopefully, it will be an inspiration for other universities as well throughout the country.”
The certified locations on campus include the Oakland Center, Hillcrest Hall and Vandenberg Hall.
Gazzarato says sustainability efforts were in full force before The PLEDGE program.
“For many years, [we] have been proactively trying to reduce our carbon footprint and food waste,” she said. “When we found The PLEDGE program, it really aligned with what we were already doing. We collect all our trim waste and leftover waste and record it.
The PLEDGE allowed us to really expand on that and start integrating consumer plate waste and what we do with all the waste that is produced, such as composting and different things that you can do with the food to repurpose it.”
Gazzarato says students can do their part to reduce food waste by being mindful of how much they put on their plates at one time.
“What’s wonderful about the dining halls is you can go up and get more as many times as you want,” she said. “So if you take a little bit and then you eat and then you find out you’re still hungry, you’re more than welcome to go back and get more.”
Dr. Scott Tiegs, professor of Biological Sciences, says reducing food waste plays a crucial role in fighting climate change.
“When you take food waste and put it in a landfill, it gets buried,” Tiegs said. “When microbes decompose organic matter like that, under anoxic conditions — without oxygen — which are very common in landfills, the particular microbes that use that food waste as an energy source as a carbon substrate, they generate methane.
They emit antigens. They basically convert that food waste to greenhouse gasses, most of which then enter the atmosphere. Some landfills try to capture some of that and use it for biofuels, but a lot of that makes its way back to the atmosphere, which is really undesirable from the perspective of managing the climate crisis.”
The certification came almost concurrently with the news that OU Credit Union would be donating $1 million toward campus sustainability efforts. This combination, Tiegs says, is promising for the future of sustainability at OU.
“This food waste certification is amazing, and this is exactly the direction that we should be going,” he said. “This really aligns with and dovetails nicely with all these new sustainability initiatives that we’re getting going.
All these new sustainability initiatives on campus really make me proud to be a Golden Grizzly. This is exactly the sort of thing that universities should be doing — paving the way, showing people how to live more sustainably. This reduction of food waste initiative is a real practical way to do that.”
Looking ahead, OU Eats hopes to continue moving in a positive trajectory by expanding sustainability initiatives. Some plans include digesters that can create compost within 24 hours and a partnership with the broader Oakland County community.
“Not only are we trying to change things here on campus, but within our surrounding community as well,” Gazzarato said.
