Learn How Your School Can Get Involved

With the recent adoption of a sustainable foodservice policy by the UC system, many campus kitchens are now facing the task of greening their foodservice operations. Additionally, the UC and CSU systems have required that each university come up with their own Strategic Energy Plan to implement changes that would curb overall campus energy use. Students and staff are looking for innovative ways to push their campuses towards higher achievements of campus sustainability and dining services are a great place to start.

There is a great need for energy efficiency education in institutions of higher learning that address the unique challenges and opportunities in foodservice operations. Kitchens are a complex mix of energy and water using equipment: cooking appliances, ventilation equipment, lighting, refrigeration, water heating and ware washing are all systems that must be understood in order to maximize energy efficiency.

Kong Sham and Lauren Mills from the Food Service Technology Center (FSTC) have been working to identify energy saving projects and develop educational curriculum in the foodservice operations of California's public universities. Sham and Mills have spent the past year visiting several UC campuses, in collaboration with the Alliance to Save Energy’s, student-led, Green Campus Program. The team has conducted in-depth energy audits with dining managers and students across UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco, representing a total of 64 dining locations. In conjunction with the Green Campus Program the team has led student and staff classroom and field-based learning sessions at Cal Poly Pomona, UC Berkeley and at the annual statewide 2011 Green Campus Energy Efficiency Summit.

Recently, Sham and Mills presented their case studies and success stories during the 2011 California Higher Education Sustainability Conference. During their presentation, “Empowering Campus Operators and Students with Dining Energy Efficiency”, Sham and Mills demonstrated how they are teaching students the fundamentals of the energy savings found in kitchens: no-cost/low cost operating procedures, calculating lifecycle cost analysis, specifying and purchasing rebate qualified appliances, and finding financial incentives for dining energy efficiency projects. One exciting success story includes a community college student who shadowed Sham during a UC audit. The student has since applied the skills she learned during the audit to help out local community eateries through an Investor-Owned Utility “Direct Install” program. Currently the student is working with a major foodservice corporation to handle their sustainability efforts.

To learn more about greening the foodservice operations at your campus, contact Lauren Mills.