This is where change begins.
Sustainable Food Systems
Sustainability in our food system requires functionality and collaboration at every step, from production to consumption and disposal.
Sustainability in our food system starts at production. You can try your hand at growing your own crops in our campus garden or listen to the buzzing of honey being made in our apiaries!
UB Veggie Van increases the UB community’s access to affordable, fresh produce while fostering a space for health-focused community engagement and unity. Sponsored by the School of Public Health & Health Professions, it offers UB students a 20% discount on all products. Consistent access to nutritious food is essential for student success and well-being. UB Blue Table provides support by connecting students to grocery resources.
UB has employed a new system for tracking the Greenhouse Gas impact of your meals, that consumers can use in real time! These icons, the GHG labels or menu identifiers, help show the impact of specific meals and ingredients at UB Dining Locations. The darkest cloud symbolizes high GHG emission (.6 - 1+ kg of CO2) associated with your meal, while the light cloud symbolizes a reduced impact (0 - .29 kg CO2).
UB Campus Dining and Shops and 3 Pillars catering compost all kitchen scraps, pre-consumer and catering food waste. In 2016, UB began working with a Natural Upcycling which operates an anaerobic digestor. All resident and retail dining locations also recycle their cooking oil through Buffalo BioDiesel!
- If you’ve been to One World Cafe, you will have seen the ROT Stations when discarding your containers. The “Recycling, Organics, and Trash” or ROT stations help us separate waste into its proper streams.
- UB uses an “All in One” approach to recycling, which means you don't have to sort your recyclables into metal, plastic, paper, etc. Just throw it all in together and let the waste reduction begin! Make sure your plastic is type 1 or 2 before recycling, and when in doubt: go with the trash receptacle.
- UB encourages the use of reuseables! We ensure that all Residential Dining Centers use china plates and silverware that can be washed a reused. In addition to this, there are Hydration Stations across campus that are filtered and better regulated than most water used in plastic bottles!
The UB Chapter of Food Recovery Network is a student-led organization, which receives financial support and mentorship from UB Sustainability. FRN has a strong partnership with UB Campus Dining and Shops and together they work to capture edible food, that would otherwise be composted, and redistribute it to community-based organizations, and Feed More WNY.
Since, it's inception in 2021 this group has relied on student volunteers to perform food recoveries. To date UB students have captured over 5 tons of food and provided it to people in need.