Incentivize Public + Large Orgs to Adopt Climate-Conscious Food Policy

Publicly-funded institutions like schools, universities, correctional facilities, and government agencies have a duty to serve the public, and they have an opportunity to lead in best ESG practices and climate and health innovation. Along with other large institutions like hospitals and corporate campuses, these organizations can have significant impacts on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through their food-related policies and practices. These actions can also improve employee and student retention, regional economic resilience, and community health.

By providing funding, administrative infrastructure, and technical support to these organizations, our region can motivate them toward major climate impact through a range of food-focused strategies, including:

1. committing to values-based purchasing practices for food procurement to support local food producers that practice sustainable methods and treat workers and animals fairly,
2. adopting workplace wellness programs, including offering subsidized community-supported agriculture shares to employees,
3. offering composting services for buildings and compost drop-off services for employees
4. incorporating food safety training into existing educational programs and including food preservation and storage infrastructure into the design and remodeling of buildings,
5. adopting foodservice and catering guidelines that prioritize nutritious, locally produced, and culturally appropriate food with minimal packaging and that include advanced plans to mitigate waste through reduction, reuse, and recycling of packaging and serving materials and rescue and redistribution of leftovers,
6. monitoring and reporting values-based purchasing and food waste metrics to improve performance and increase accountability and transparency
7. And more!

Whether we pair these strategies with other proposals that target public institutions and/or large-footprint organizations, or we combine them with other proposals focused on food waste reduction, composting, and agriculture (or both!), we should focus some of our efforts on supporting big players to lead our region in reducing emissions and improving economic resilience and community health through food.

And we can do it! With further investment, we can draw on the efforts already underway across our region to deliver on this proposal across the region.

Below are just some (non-exhaustive!) examples of projects and organizations already working on climate-conscious food policy at institutions (numbered to match the strategies above):

1. Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) is our region’s leader in values-based purchasing as a participant in the national Good Food Purchasing Program. CPS purchases hundreds of thousands of dollars in locally produced, seasonal food for students per year, supporting many BIPOC- and women-owned small businesses in the tri-state in the process.
2. KY Farm Share Coalition is our regional leader in workplace wellness CSAs in NKY, and the University of Kentucky has extensive research and case studies to illustrate the benefits of the model. Other local CSAs, including Our Harvest and Mustard Seed Farm, could benefit from expansion of such programs across the region.
3. Queen City Commons and CompostNow are two examples of local service providers that can help businesses in reducing emissions from food waste.
4. Agriculture education and workforce development programs like those led by CPS, Brick Gardens, Cincinnati State University, University of Cincinnati (UC), and Groundwork Ohio River Valley are innovating in the intersection of food safety and agriculture, and Hamilton County R3Source is supporting many area organizations in improving food storage infrastructure.
5. American Heart Association, Hamilton Co. Public Health, Bearcats Food Recovery Network at UC, and Last Mile Food Rescue are just some of the organizations providing support in these areas.
6. The Good Food Purchasing Program, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School are some of the national-level partners providing resources on metrics and reporting, and they’re supported through locally resources like the 513 Green program and Feed Our Future.