Local and Sustainable Food Purchasing at The Ohio State University: Capstone Course Proposal

Course Code: ENR/AEDE 4567The purpose of this project is to create a response to the university’s sustainability goals developed by the President and Provost’s Council on Sustainability in November 2015 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The specific scope of our project is to address the university’s goal to “increase production and purchase of locally and sustainably sourced food to 40% by 2025.” The methods to develop a response to the university included: quantitatively analyzing OSU’s 2016 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (AASHE STARS) report for Food and Beverage Purchasing, qualitatively assessing the present-day atmosphere around food at OSU, including meetings with Dining Services representatives and leaders in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, as well as researching the Real Food Challenge (RFC), deeming it an appropriate and necessary tool for the university to utilize. The results that the research group produced is the creation of an EEDS (Environment, Economics, Development, and Sustainability) Capstone course that focuses on the research and analysis of The Ohio State University’s purchasing and sourcing of local and sustainable food using the Real Food Calculator Framework, which is a tool used by students to track institutional purchasing over time. The baselining work that Ohio State would need to accomplish in order to achieve purchasing of 40% local and sustainable food is an undertaking in itself; the introduction of a new capstone will help the university utilize their resources in a financially responsible manner by allowing students to conduct and analyze this necessary research, as well as fill the growing demand for a thematic capstone course within the School of Environment and Natural Resources. Our team believes that the goal put forth by Ohio State is very ambitious, as the university has less than ten years to almost quadruple the percentage of local and sustainable food purchasing. No other universities reporting to AASHE of comparable financial resources and student enrollment to Ohio State are near 40% at this time. Leaders in local and sustainable food purchasing (Michigan State University and University of Texas at Austin) are currently at 21%. In order to achieve comparable results with these universities, The Ohio State University needs to conduct extensive baselining work and provide a mechanism that ensures transparency, accountability, and constant collaboration with involved stakeholders. We believe the capstone course will provide Ohio State with a financially responsible option of pursuing this goal. In addition to the course, we recommend that the University should sign the Real Food Campus Commitment. Signing the commitment will hold Ohio State accountable, provide a mechanism of transparency, and will enable the capstone course’s work to be viable in the decision making process.Academic Major: Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainabilit