Universities everywhere are becoming more centrally engaged with the practice and teaching of sustainability as a key constraint on social and individual decision making. Beginning with a core concern for preparing students for a rapidly changing world, campuses are increasingly scrutinizing their own practices as well. Food, and the delivery of food services, is rapidly becoming central to operational concerns with sustainability on campuses across the world.
The Greening Project at the California State University, Northridge, is centrally concerned with food planning issues. As part of this effort, we are proposing the establishment of:
a) a comprehensive food system analysis which will consider, amongst other things, an analysis of the carbon footprint of current food delivery services and supply chains,
b) the increased localization of food delivery systems, including the establishment of a weekly Farmers Market on campus, and
c) the improved processing of food supply-related wastes, in the form of a comprehensive waste management strategy that includes composting.
Toward this end, we are seeking funding support to help usÉ
It is becoming increasingly evident that humanity is approaching a critical turning point, which has been called the Great Climacteric. Two forces converge to make this a transformative moment in human history: our approach to the limits of the planetÕs carrying capacity[1], and as climate change begins to inevitably alter our world.
The world population stands at about 6.7 billion, and will increase to between nine and 10 billion over the next few decades. America has a population of about 300 million, and consumes about 30% of the worldÕs carrying capacity. India and China currently have a cumulative population of about 2.5 billion, and their standards of living are rapidly increasing. Planetary capacities to sustain life, both in terms of raw material inputs and in terms of pollution processing capacities, will come under tremendous pressure over the next few decades.
At the same time, human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have increased to a point where global climate change is considered inevitable. It is now widely recognized that cutting our emissions of GHGs and our dependence on a carbon-based economy are both imperative. Buildings and transportation are the two most substantial sectors from which GHGs are emittedÑbuildings in their construction and day-to-day operations, and transportation in its use of fossil fuels. Both sectors urgently need to be restructured to address this fact.
These two factors, taken together, give rise to the imperative for sustainability. We must change how we make individual and societal decisions so as to ensure that the outcomes of our actions are significantly different from the status quo. This imperative for sustainability has two components. It requires that actions in the present do not needlessly curtail the possibilities available to future generations, and it requires that decisions about action take appropriate account of the three constitutive factorsÑecology, economy, and ethics.
With this as its background, the CSUN Greening Project is interested in integrating its food delivery system into its imperative to act sustainably and to teach sustainability.
[1] Carrying Capacity can be thought of as the biogeochemical limits to growth imposed by the planet, in terms of sources and sinksÑconsidering both the raw material inputs required to sustain life on earth, and in terms of the pollution that must be recycled by natural processes.