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Advancing Intersectional Climate, Biodiversity, Food Justice & Sovereignty Principles : Evaluation & Comparative Analysis of Food Certifications

University of British Columbia. Food Services; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

As the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) food system emits over 29,000 tonnes of CO₂ every year, UBC’s Climate Action Plan 2030 (CAP 2030) has set a goal of reducing campus food system greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% before 2030 to improve campus sustainability (Campus and Community Planning, 2021). UBC can pursue food system sustainability through the use of food certifications, which help to provide transparency of the sustainability of food items. On top of improving campus sustainability, UBC’s interest in certifications may help influence other food suppliers and producers to look into food certifications as a method for sustainable food procurement due to their large purchasing power. The four core principles that this project aims to address are reducing GHGs, enhancing biodiversity, ensuring food justice, and promoting food sovereignty. Such principles can help UBC Food Services (UBCFS) further develop a Climate-Friendly Food System (CFFS) Procurement Strategy. The main objectives of this project were: (1) conducting a literature on different food certifications systems and their impacts on climate, biodiversity, food justice, and food sovereignty, (2) finding promising practices other institutions are including in their sustainable procurement policies that UBC can adopt and implement, (3) consulting local food system stakeholders to gain different viewpoints on food certifications, and (4) comparing and analyzing various food certifications to determine how each one could impact UBCFS’s sustainable procurement strategy for five core food categories (coffee and tea, produce, protein, dairy, and bread and baked goods). Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Report

eng

2023-09-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85849

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/