“Social equity is a piece that’s at the heart of sustainability efforts,” said Chad King, Sustainability Director at DU. But with an out-of-date Sustainability Plan that has many moving pieces, achieving social equity while focusing on DU’s other sustainability goals is easier said than done.

Many students may have seen the recycle and compost bins on campus, called “tri-bins” and thought about sustainability, but few may have considered this connection to social equity. DU has linked sustainability with social equity so far with elements such as service learning and Sodexo initiatives such as the Real Food Challenge, LeanPath, Stop Hunger and Meatless Mondays.

“Equity is typically one of the three legs of the stool of sustainability as it’s typically defined,” said King. “That said, it’s a lot easier to talk about environmental and economic sustainability than get into what they look like together. But sustainability, at the core, needs to look at equity. It’s typically the lower income communities that are hardest hit by environmental service degradation, such as air quality and water quality.”

However, King has concerns that the social equity piece of sustainability needs more attention when it comes to purchasing policies.

“Not a lot [of our future goals] get into social equity, though,” said King. “There have been some national movements into divesting from gas and oil, so getting into how our financial efforts impact the environment is not something we are looking at here quite yet. But we will be reviewing university policies, ranging from environmental policies and ground management all the way to policies on flexible work weeks or remote working (which has a great impact of carbon footprint) as part of our updated plan.”

The state of sustainability at DU

It’s been a year since Chad King was hired as the first full-time staff of DU’s Center for Sustainability.
In that time, he has worked on implementing best practices, improving reporting, getting involved with classes and co-curricular education with the office of Student Life and Housing and Residential Education and putting on events that get people involved in sustainability efforts on campus – just to name a few highlights.

DU’s most measurable sustainability target has been toward the President’s Challenge, which Chancellor Robert Coombe signed in 2006, pledging that DU will become carbon-neutral by 2050. According to King, as of 2012, DU’s carbon footprint was 20 percent lower than the 2007 baseline, although this did not include the new Anderson Academic Commons.

“We [DU] have made great strides, mostly due to energy improvements. Most schools will say that they have improved the carbon footprint intensity by person or square foot, but this is much bigger than that,” said King.

The Real Food Challenge is one of several sustainability projects in the works by Sodexo, DU’s primary food service provider, according to Ira Simon, Sodexo resident district manager.

“I don’t think that people realize that we make such a huge effort with our purchasing,” said Simon. “During the past year, Sodexo has partnered with the Real Food Challenge, a student-initiated organization. There are four categories: fair trade, local, organic and humane, the way that animals are treated. Any one of those things can be bought as ‘real food.’”

According to Simon, the goal is 20 percent “real food” by 2020. DU is currently between eight and 10 percent real food.

Sodexo’s Cameron Gates, in-unit Marketing Director for DU Sodexo, also said that Sodexo as a company has become “very conscious” of sustainability efforts and its connection to social equity, through programs like LeanPath, Stop Hunger and Meatless Mondays.

“On average and on this campus, each plate per student wastes three ounces,” said Gates. “Whatever ends up in the trash could have ended up in someone else’s belly. There’s a crazy number of starving people on this planet, and that waste could feed them. One chicken takes something like several hundred gallons of water. Thinking about how much raw resources go into meat, which is why we started Meatless Monday, really speaks to that. Food, hunger and sustainability are all connected.”

LeanPath is a program that requires Sodexo to weigh kitchen trimmings and track pre- and post-consumer waste to overall increase efficiency in production, toward the motto, “save food, save labor, save waste,” according to Gates.

Stop the Hunger is a national campaign that gives back to “economically-challenged folks,” said Simon, including monetary donations and canned food drives in November. Gates said that information is not available on the amount donated by Sodexo to Food Bank of the Rockies, and food waste is not donated on a daily basis
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A new plan

Part of King’s goal for this upcoming year is to get endorsements for a new sustainability plan for the university, according to King, which means taking a look at the current 2008-2009 plan, available on DU’s website, and updating it with measurable goals.

The current plan takes a look at social equity in several ways, including curriculum, compensation, service learning, purchasing policies, educational outcomes and investments. King’s level of involvement in each of these areas in the past year has been mixed.

One major portion of the current plan is curriculum, including service learning. The current sustainability plan states “The University of Denver recognizes that the mission of a university is to prepare students today for a future characterized by change, uncertainty, wide disparities in quality of life and hope and yet tremendous opportunity. As such, the University is committed to refining existing curriculum and creating new curriculum consistent with the ideals of sustainability.”

King said that in order for a society to be sustainable, these “wide disparities in quality of life” must be addressed by meeting people’s basic needs, tying the goals of sustainability and equity together.
“In order for a society to be healthy and thriving there should be an equitable balance of wealth and materials that encourage meeting those needs,” said King. “It’s seeking that justice that comes in a society that is sustainable for all the people in the society.”

Another portion of the plan focuses on diversity as a means to sustainability: “The University of Denver recognizes the importance of social justice in creating a sustainable world… Institutional commitment to diversity in administration furthers the university’s commitment to sustainability as it seeks to advance the institutional vision for inclusive excellence and social justice.”

King said that his job has not “delved” much into diversity since he was at DU.

“The idea is that a robust, thriving institution is made more sustainable by a variety of viewpoints. Advancing tolerance and understanding around the world. More acceptances is more sustainable,” said King.
The sustainability plan currently discusses “socially- responsible investment,” said King. “Many schools have become involved in efforts to improve the business practices of those corporations in which they are invested because they are chartered as non-profit institutions, and therefore have a special obligation to act in the public interest.” The plan outlines a May 2006 investment of $250,000 in the Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium, which “increases the ties between mainstream financial institutions and microfinance groups,” a partnership between Deustche Bank and Daniels’ College of Business that included a student trip to Durress, Albania helping to build a sustainable community in Keneta, “one of the poorest areas of the city.”

The plan also discusses a “Sudan divestment initiative,” which encourages shareholder divestment from “highest offenders” relative to the “tragic situation in Sudan.” King said he was not aware of or involved in these initiatives, but will continue to look locally at purchasing strategies.

“Our actions as a campus can address social equity,” said King. “There are some purchasing suggestions around recycled materials, and that could be expanded to locally, minority owned businesses. We are trying to push that with food services as part of the Real Food Challenge. I think a lot of purchasing policies can affect equity in the community. Some universities look at affordable housing and fair wage, but purchasing is big too.”

More work to be done

Some students believe that the implementation of the current plan does not do enough for social equity, and neither King nor Simon commented on specific future goals toward social equity and sustainability for the new plan.

Geoff Tennent, a second year Master’s student at Korbel, is part of one such student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, that is working to change DU’s purchasing policies in regards to funding violence in Israel through the purchase of Sabra hummus.

“There are a number of issues related to sustainability here,” said Tennent. “In addition to the obvious issue of recycling plastic, there are also issues with the occupation where Palestinians do not have access to water, especially a specific aquifer on the West Bank. There are huge water shortages and mineral rights disputes, and much of the fighting destroys wells and water infrastructure. There are issues with the Jordan River, the destruction of Palestinian olive groves which is loss of trees, home demolitions which are wasting materials and things like that.”

Another area of concern is social equity within Sodexo. DU’s sustainability plan also discusses “sustainable compensation,” which includes factors such as “comprehensive compensation that is competitive,” “living wage” and flexible, merit-based salary increases. Simon said Sodexo at DU adheres to the plan.

“We start at $9.22 an hour, average wages are $13 to $15 [an hour] before benefits,” said Simon. We have a lot of long- term employees, we are very competitive in the market – we hire 160 employees on campus. Our benefit package is competitive. Our challenge as a campus is shut down periods. We have less things open during breaks, and it presents challenges for people looking for 12-month employment.”

Farm worker rights may be another area of concern. Simon also said that Sodexo is working toward fair trade food, although he defined the fair trade standard only as “the way it’s grown and about the way you treat the employees that harvest it, as far as a fair wage, fair working conditions, no children. It’s the way we do business with people.”

King said he “firmly believes” that the public good involves both the environment and “our contributions back to the marginalized and those in need.”

“We [DU] define ourselves as a private university for the public good… I think everything from our purchasing policies to the food we serve, the types of clothing we wear, the way we manage our waste, our water use all of those things have an impact on the public good,” said King.

This story is part of a three-part series aimed at giving equal voice to populations in poverty by examining policies that affect them for the Marguerite Casey Foundation 2013 Scholarship for Journalism on Poverty. The series, called,“Impoverished Policies,” examines already progressive social policies that have gaps that disproportionately affect the poor or minorities.