Assessing the sustainability of the UBC Food System

Food production and distribution on the UBC campus is conducted through UBC Food Services and AMS Food Services. Presently, through our strong and weak anthropocentric, and community-based values, our group assessed sustainability through indicators such as the number of culturally diverse food establishments in proportion to the number of ethnic populations on campus, the availability of healthy and affordable options, and post-consumer food packaging waste. Our methods of data collection include these social, economic, and ecological perspectives. Social sustainability will be assessed through collaboration between UBC Food Services and AMS Food Services to initiate a planning process with research, implementation, and evaluation proposals for the introduction of more culturally appropriate food establishments for the diverse UBC community. Economic sustainability can be evaluated by data collection and tabulation of the number of healthy meal choices available in increasing price ranges, to provide information such as choice of healthy, complete meals with respect to price. The ecological indicator will be assessed by measuring the amount of noncompostable versus compostable post-consumer food and food packaging waste on campus. As part of our research model, we propose the use of foam laminate products instead of Styrofoam or paper products. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”Land and Food Systems, Faculty ofUnreviewedUndergraduat