ETH Zurich's Climate Programme starting

Thousands of students, staff, and guests eat in the numerous canteens at ETH Zurich every day. All those meals served have significant environmental and health-related impacts; therefore, the ETH Catering Commission launched a project in 2013 to find ways that catering companies could contribute to ETH climate goals and to determine the critical factors influencing sustainable catering.

ETH Seed Sustainability and the World Food System Center came onboard to lead the project, which was largely based on research done in the context of Master thesis work in the “living lab” of the ETH canteens. Three interdisciplinary teams of students carried out their research developing and testing interventions aimed at (1) the climate effects of menus, (2) food waste, and (3) the health and environmental impacts of menus. Throughout the process, the ETH Catering Commission provided broad and strong support for the initiative, which created a promising opportunity: to initiate a transformation of the campus food system by creating a “living lab for sustainable campus catering.”

Start and duration of the ETH Zurich Climate Programme

The Climate Programme, which begins in January 2018, was developed on the basis of these results. ETH Zurich aims to reduce the CO_2eq footprint of the campus catering facilities significantly over the next three years.

The Climate Programme mechanism

In principle, the Climate Programme is based on voluntary participation and self-commitment. So far, the external page SV Group and the external page Compass Group have made voluntary commitments to cut back their emissions by 10 percent over the next three years. These participating catering partners may use the label “ETH Climate Programme Participant” if they (1) calculate the CO_2eq footprint of their annual basket of goods; (2) disclose it to ETH Zurich; (3) make a commitment to reduce their CO_2eq footprint based on a target agreement; and (4) present an action plan for achieving the agreed reduction goal. To this end, they can call upon research expertise at ETH Zurich through the ETH Seed Sustainability platform.

Long-term sustainability program for ETH catering

The Climate Programme is just one building block of a comprehensive sustainability drive that will encompass all aspects of sustainable food consumption in the future. Animal welfare and water usage are also due to be integrated. The political and scientific implications of this long-term orientation will have to be negotiated by taking into account the views of all relevant stakeholders in ETH Zurich’s catering program in order to determine and, where necessary, weight the most important sustainability factors. Within the Climate Programme, all participants are engaged in important preparatory work for the next steps towards a more sustainable catering system at ETH Zurich.