UCLA Catering Services - Serving Sustainability

UCLA Catering Services and ASUCLA Catering both cater events on UCLA's campus. As such, both entities are subject to UCLA’s goal of being waste free by 2020, and have been taking steps to meet or exceed the UC Policy on Sustainable Practices. UCLA Catering uses exclusively recyclable and compostable utensils, and is working on changing their recyclable containers to compostable ones. They source much of their food from a 50 mile radius, although there is room for improvement, namely making imported canned and packaged goods in-house. They also claim to recycle or compost 99% of their waste. ASUCLA Catering utilizes electric carts to transport food, composts, and is working on switching to compostable "to-go" containers.

The biggest challenges faced by both organizations are educating employees and customers. Therefore, we recommend waste disposal training for all new-hires as well as periodic reassessments. We also recommend that ASUCLA adopt the signage and instruction materials that UCLA Catering uses (seen below), and that both organizations provide different colored bins with educational posters whenever catering an event. Finally, we recommend that both catering services, and UCLA overall, aim to obtain environmental certifications, namely the Marine Stewardship Council, the Green Seal Standard for Restaurants and Food Services, and the Real Food Campus Commitment, by continuing to switch to locally and sustainably grown foods and compostable packaging and utensils.

Group 9 - Leyla Farzaneh, Yassine Hamdouni Alami, Zachary Alter, Maxim Guzman

The Fat Vegetarian!

Practices that produce a negative impact on the environment span all across society. However, the industry with one of the largest effects on our environment is the food industry. Taking this into account, our group set out to create a report on one of Westwood's favorite eating establishments: Fat Sal's Deli. The meat industry has a massive impact upon the environment and it is no secret that Fat Sal's is famous for their meat-heavy sandwiches. One of our projects main focuses was introducing a vegetarian sandwich. Not only would this expand Fat Sal’s customer base to those with vegetarian lifestyles, but the veggie sandwiches would be cheaper to produce. Ingredients would be used from other menu items, thus limiting costs and hopefully luring some customers away from meat filled sandwiches. Another task was to address the use of plastics and disposable materials. The goal would be to introduce reusable cups, compostable utensils and recycling bins. This would cut down Fat Sal's waste disposal costs while helping preserve the environment. One of the major ramifications of these changes would be improving Fat Sal's public image – especially in the relatively environmentally friendly, college-town of Westwood.

Group 1: Hogan Fenster, Zoe Robertson, Destiny Tafoya, Vitor Takasu, and Grant Sugimura 

Home Sweet Home Summary

Home Sweet Home is a company successfully employing the use of the green bundle strategy. The company not only offers their customers the opportunity to save money, but the opportunity for the customer to do public good through their environmental strategy. Currently, the company has implemented their environmental strategy through their “Save a Tree” and “Discard and Donate” program. Through these programs, the company cuts costs by reducing the overall amount of good shipped, which leads to the reduction of carbon emissions and potentially  equivocates to the saving of three trees. With such a successful environmental strategy, one positive change could the implementation of a reusable box product such as the Recopack. Additionally, the company would benefit most from updating their website to best communicate just what Home Sweet Home can do for both the customer and the public good. The current environmental impact statistics and information regarding the “Discard and Donate” program are difficult to interpret. Large numbers and vague statements may look positive to an interested customer but the extent to what they mean is not clear. Thus, the company need do little more than better advertise and clarify their use of the green bundle strategy.

-Group 5: Kelley Brennan, Keely Watland, Ashley Arcos, Daniel Begazo

Grand Central Market: Packaging its Way to a More Sustainable Future

The Grand Central Market is a popular food destination located in Downtown Los Angeles. The Market has over 50 vendors which operate with varying levels of environmental responsibility. Given the shared nature of the Market, issues relating to the Tragedy of the Commons are prevalent there. Thus, the current sustainability strategy pursued by the Market is not enough to counterbalance the vendors who are not working toward decreasing their environmental footprint. What’s more, the Market produces a great deal of waste associated with food packaging. Therefore, we sought to pair the goal of decreasing packaging waste with providing an incentive to vendors. Our proposed strategy invites the Market to incentivize vendors to switch to environmentally responsible packaging through the use of an eco-label system, so that vendors which use sustainable packaging benefit. Additionally, we recommend that the Market increases the size of its recycling bins in order to accommodate the growing numbers of recycled packaging, and implement signage that communicates to the consumers their efforts to reduce waste.

*Source: We like L.A, Google.com. Web. 2, June 2017. http://www.welikela.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/grand-central-market-featured.jpg

Group 7: Judith Foster, Grace Reynolds, Carly York, Maria Kiejnich

BoxCamp Environmental Recommendations: Summary

BoxCamp is a UCLA startup that seeks to provide its customers with convenient and affordable storage solutions. The company was created to help college students pack, transport, and store items such as textbooks, small appliances, and clothing during the summer break.

In an email interview conducted with Keith Yoder, CEO of BoxCamp, we asked what type of environmental strategy (if any) the company was currently practicing. We learned that being more sustainable is a goal BoxCamp is interested in pursuing; however, they do not currently have a clear plan to do so. Thus, we recommend a few environmental strategies to make the business more sustainable without compromising profits. These strategies focus largely on improving the company’s packaging methods, either by switching to the use of reusable plastic bins, which have a superior life cycle analysis to corrugated cardboard, or by incentivizing customers to recycle their boxes after use so that BoxCamp can resell them. Overall, these strategies will allow the company to improve both its bottom line and environmental performance.

Group 3: Brisa Aviles, Kalei Aricayos, Andrea Mahieu, Corey Ly, and Allison Wolhart