Imperial College London

Imperial’s beef with beef

Imperial’s catering division is transforming its operations to become a leader in sustainable catering in the UK university sector. This is underlined by a best-in-class sustainable food and drink policy, committing the organisation to science-based targets, and making it accountable to achieve ambitious, unambiguous targets to reduce its carbon footprint.

Supported by the University’s commitment to sustainability as a core strategic priority, Imperial’s catering division is employing an integrative, whole-organisation, whole-supply chain approach to aggressively reduce its environmental impact.

Environmental impact here considers procurement of catering supplies, infrastructure to cook, and what is served and how our staff and student community can make more sustainable choices – tapping into consumer trends and interests, nudge-theory behaviour-change tactics and educating the impacts food has on the environment.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Do not overestimate your customers understanding of the environmental impacts of food.
2. Collaboration between academic staff, students and operational teams is magic.
3. Communicate all improvements – celebrate back-of-house progress!