Aramark, the University’s catering service, has been shortlisted in the 2020 Footprint Awards for the Sustainability in Education award.
The Footprint Awards are an annual celebration to honour the achievements of companies in sustainability and responsible business practice. It celebrates initiative, innovation, commercial imagination, and endeavour.
Aramark’s on-site catering team, through close collaboration with both the University Sustainability Team and the Environmental Society, have developed an all-encompassing sustainability strategy. From developing on-site growing spaces to regular student engagement sessions, the focus is to provide top class catering facilities whilst ensuring as a business that they are operating within their own strict Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines. This strategy has been launched in order to create a Sustainable Food Policy, which will deliver tangible benefits to people and the planet.
Aramark has helped to reduce their carbon footprint in a number of ways, including the development of a new vegetarian coffee shop concept and introducing a coffee cup recycling scheme across the University’s Regent and Cavendish Campuses, which encourage customers to return their disposable cups to the recycling stations by rewarding every 50th cup returned with prizes. This scheme has involved procuring a new waste disposal partner and has already been successful, preventing 6000kg of C02 from entering the atmosphere.
They have also promoted the health and wellbeing with pop ups around International Vegan and Vegetarian Day, International Diabetes Awareness and #Take15 Mental Health Awareness. Aramark’s growing YouTube channel also provides students with content including healthy recipes and their sustainable sourcing strategies.
Aramark has also strengthened their involvement in the community with their Corporate Social Responsibility Lead and Group Account Manager volunteering for FoodCycle, a charity that provide meals for those in need using surplus ingredients. They also held their annual Building Communities Day, organised by the University of Westminster Site Team, where the team and members of the business refurbished a local scout hall and outside gardening area.
This year Aramark also won the Green Kitchen Standard Award and maintained their Food for Life Bronze Standard Award, Good Egg and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fish Accreditations.
The 2020 Footprint Awards Dinner will take place at the Royal Institute of British Architects on 17 September 2020.
In their submission for the award they wrote: “Aramark and the University’s relationship has been a true partnership and both parties recognised that it was within their gift to help shape a focused approach on Corporate Social Responsibility. The success of this collaboration has meant creating a sustainable platform for University of Westminster students and staff that sit within the principles of ‘Being Westminster’. Together we can continue the journey and achieve more sustainable milestones.”
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