Shifting institutional food purchasing is a powerful climate mitigation strategy that remains largely untapped. Yet replacing resource-intensive animal products with plant-based proteins is a relatively simple approach that can generate large climate benefits as well as cost savings.
An inspiring story from the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) provides a roadmap for tapping into this strategy. The district significantly reduced its carbon and water footprint by replacing a share of its meat, poultry, and cheese purchases with plant-forward alternatives. These changes also saved costs and improved students’ access to healthy food. Their story is summarized in Shrinking the Carbon and Water Footprint of School Food: A Recipe for Combating Climate Change, a report found at https://foe.org.
Similar shifts in institutions across the country can achieve significant environmental benefits. With their large purchasing power and potential to shape eating habits from a young age, schools can lead the transition towards sustainable diets that are better for our health and our planet.
Why Shift to Plant-Forward Menus?
Environmental Benefits
As the Oakland report describes, animal products are the most resource-intensive part of our diet, requiring large energy and water inputs. Among foods that have the largest carbon and water footprints are beef, pork, and cheese, as seen in Figures 1 and 2. The food and agriculture sector accounts for one-fourth of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In supplying our meat and dairy demand, animal agriculture alone accounts for over half of these emissions and at least a third of the world’s water usage.
Figure 1. Carbon footprint of different foods. Source: Heller, M.C. and Keoleian, G.A. (2014).
Figure 2. Water footprint of different foods. Source: Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2011, 2012).
The vital role of adopting plant-forward menus in achieving sustainability is well documented in numerous studies and peer-reviewed articles. A 2014 report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the potential to reduce GHG emissions by reducing meat consumption is substantially higher than that of any other agricultural technical mitigation measures. Similarly, the 2016 Menus of Change report from the Culinary Institute and Harvard’s School of Public Health indicates that “greater emphasis on healthy plant-based foods – including plant-based proteins – is the single most important contribution the foodservice industry can make toward environmental sustainability.” The environmental benefits of reducing meat consumption are likewise stressed in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Report, compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Animal products, including meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy, dominate the carbon footprint of most institutional food purchasing. OUSD’s animal products alone were responsible for 76 percent of its food related GHG emissions but only 21 percent of the total weight of food purchased in 2012-13. After reshaping its menu with fewer animal foods and more protein-rich legumes and vegetables, OUSD reduced its food service’s carbon footprint by 14 percent over two years, which equates to avoiding 1.5 million miles of driving each year or covering all of OUSD’s 85 schools with rooftop solar panels.
The district’s shift towards plant-forward menus also reduced its water footprint by 7 gallons, or 6 percent, per meal over two years. As some of the replacement plant-based foods have relatively high water footprints, the water conservation benefits were not as large as the carbon emissions benefits. Nonetheless, shifting away from water-intensive animal foods is an important sustainability strategy, especially in regions where water is becoming an increasingly limited resource.
Economic Benefits
Shifting towards healthier plant-based foods does not only benefit the environment, but it can also alleviate stress on highly constrained school budgets. Unlike more complex sustainability strategies such as building renewable energy capacity, reducing animal products in food service can be a cost-neutral or a cost-saving strategy. In addition to reducing its carbon and water footprint, OUSD achieved a 1 percent cost reduction per meal, saving $42,000 over two academic years. These considerable cost savings are likely to grow in coming years with increasing energy and water costs as well as the growing number of extreme weather events that heavily impact livestock production. Shifting towards plant-forward menus is therefore likely to become increasingly financially beneficial and should be considered as a cost-effective complement to other climate mitigation strategies.
How to Implement Plant-Forward Menus?
1) Shift to Vegetarian and Reduced Meat Recipes
Well-liked vegetarian and reduced meat recipes were key to Oakland’s success and offer an excellent and easily replicable approach to shift towards plant-forward menus at affordable prices. The district introduced recipes such as the Vegetarian Tostada with avocado and the Beef Chili, replacing 50 percent of the beef with legumes, including beans and lentils, to count toward the protein quota. Another reduced meat item that can help to lower environmental impact is a blended burger, which likewise replaces meat content with vegetables. The blended burger offered by Sodexo, a leading food service provider, for instance, replaces 30 percent of overall beef content with mushrooms and has won student taste test comparisons.
Many resources and partners are ready to assist school districts in developing and implementing climate-conscious, plant-forward menus. Meatless Mondays and the Humane Society of the United States have developed many scalable recipes to help schools prepare delicious plant-based meals that meet the USDA requirements. Their recipes, guides, and other resources can be found at www.mondaycampaigns.org.
Moreover, Friends of the Earth along with the Humane Society and other organizations started the Bring Food Forward Initiative, aiming to ensure that 50 percent of total meals offered in U.S. institutional dining programs are plant-based by 2025. Their tools, case studies, and are available at www.forwardfood.org.
Additional resources for shifting towards climate-conscious, plant-forward menus include:
Menus of Change. Stemming from a collaboration between the Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, this initiative works to realize a vision integrating optimal nutrition and public health, environmental stewardship and restoration, and social responsibility concerns in the foodservice industry and culinary profession.
The Lunch Box: Tools for School Food Change. Created by the Chef Ann Foundation, this online toolkit provides free step-by-step guides, tools, recipes, and other resources to help schools improve their meal programs and convert to scratch-cooking.
Lean and Green Kids. Through its education programs in the classroom, cafeteria, and community, this eco-health nonprofit teaches children and families about the environmental and health benefits of eating plants, especially beans, for “lean and green protein.”
Coalition for Healthy School Food. This coalition helps schools add healthy plant-based options to their menus and provides nutrition education to the whole school community including students, parents, teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, and food service personnel.
2) Source Better-Quality Meat
Reducing meat consumption enables schools to source less and better-quality meat. With its cost savings from adopting plant-forward menus, OUSD was able to compensate for higher prices and began purchasing better quality beef from Mindful Meats, a sustainability-focused company that sources meat from retired dairy cows raised organically and more humanely. Meat from retired dairy cows has a significantly lower water and carbon footprint, as it is spread across both dairy and meat products. By incorporating reduced meat recipes in addition to plant-based meals, schools can afford to buy healthier, grassfed meat from producers whose practices protect biodiversity, create healthy soils, and ensure animal welfare.
While organic, pasture-raised beef has large environmental and health advantages over industrial beef, it is important to note that it still requires more resources and has a much higher environmental footprint than plant-based proteins.
3) Source From Local and Sustainable Farms
Sourcing food from local farms and those that practice sustainable agriculture can also help to reduce environmental impact. OUSD made use of locally-sourced produce in its no-meat and reduced meat meals as part of the California Thursdays program. Initiated by the Center for Ecoliteracy, this program enables schools to serve local food by starting with a commitment to a freshly-prepared meal made with California-grown products just one day a week, and gradually changing their practices to make locally-gown, fresh food an everyday event.
Large food buyers can also reduce their environmental impact by purchasing food from farms that adopt sustainable agriculture practices such as cover cropping, composting, mulching, rotational grazing, and biological control of insects. Often associated with organic farming and mixed crop-livestock systems, these practices improve soil fertility, protect biodiversity, and manage insects without toxic chemicals. They also reduce energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions and protect water supplies.
Conclusion
Across the country, momentum is growing among educational communities in helping to build a sustainable future. OUSD is just one among hundreds of school districts nationwide taking steps to reduce environmental impact by shifting towards plant-forward menus, and a growing number of sustainable food procurement standards like the Good Food Purchasing Program are emphasizing the importance of reducing animal products.
While momentum is growing, much work is yet to be done. The benefits of plant-forward menus are still under-recognized and many groups working to reduce the environmental impact of school food still do not consider the carbon and water footprint of different choices.
Serving over seven billion meals annually, schools can make a much larger impact by implementing climate-conscious menus. Their vast purchasing power can help to shift agriculture away from resource-intensive foods towards plant-based, more sustainable alternatives. And by coupling menu shifts with educational food programs on health and sustainability, schools can play a unique role in shaping next generations of sustainability-minded, healthier consumers.
Report summary compiled by Maryana Dumalska, intern at Boyer Sudduth Environmental Consultants and recent graduate of Boston College with a degree in Environmental Geoscience.
