‘Come up with ways to make the campus more sustainable,’ this is one of the challenges put before the master's students of the course ‘innovation Space Project: innovation and entrepreneurship processes.’ “The assignment was phrased by Anna Wieczorek, TU/e’s Sustainability Ambassador,” master's student of Applied Physics and Sustainably Energy Technology Merel Laarhoven (23) says.

She and fellow students Synnøve Hjellvik, Drashti Patel and Quirine Verbeek took up the challenge, which allowed them to contribute many of their own ideas. “It was a very broad topic, we could also have focused on environmentally sustainable research, or on mobility to and from campus, for example, or on water consumption. Our choice fell on food, because it’s part of every student’s and employee’s life. It also allowed us to adopt a bottom-up approach. We like to show that change doesn’t necessarily has to come from above.”

Vertigo

Their first step was to talk to as many people as they could. “We found out that many people at TU/e want to make conscious choices, but that they don’t know exactly how,” Laarhoven says. This is how the students came up with the idea of the so-called ‘foodprint labels,’ a wordplay on the carbon, or ecological, footprint. Their inspiration came from the energy categories we know from light bulbs and electronic devices.

University caterer Appèl was glad to cooperate, Laarhoven says. Sustainability is one of the catering company’s focus areas. “Irma van Mierlo, manager of the canteen at Vertigo, immediately responded enthusiastically. She too thinks of sustainability; she offers a wide variety of vegetarian products.”

A pilot project will take place in Vertigo from Monday 13th until Friday 17th of December. The sandwiches and everything else on the lunch menu will have green, yellow or red labels, based on the carbon emissions caused by their production process.

Chicken-bacon-truffle

A chicken-bacon-truffe sandwich, for example, will be labeled red, a pumpkin panini green. Bread with green pea spread and egg is somewhere in the middle and scores yellow. There’s a QR code you can scan if you would like to know more. The students calculated the carbon footprints of each lunch item using the list of ingredients.

That is why Laarhoven is properly informed. “In general, meat production has a much more significant impact on the environment than vegetarian products, but there are other contributing factors. Imported apples have a much larger carbon footprint than Dutch apples. And avocado production requires a lot of water, which makes them less sustainable.”

Lunch behavior

The students want to use the pilot to investigate whether the labels will influence lunch behavior during canteen visits. Will people choose the pumpkin instead of the chicken-bacon? Laarhoven is curious to find out.

“If the system proves successful, we hope to be allowed to implement it in every canteen, so that we can reduce TU/e’s ecological footprint that way. Eventually, we would also like to provide the labels as a service to other caterers.”

You can find out how sustainable your favorite sandwich is on the labels in the canteen at Vertigo, from December 13th till 17th.