Sustainable Campus Outlets
"We are committed to providing healthy and environmentally sustainable food to all our students, staff and visitors."
Central campus offers many different food outlets that are run by the teams at Warwick Food and Drink, Warwick Food Group and the Warwick Conferences.
By collaborating across the commercial outlets, the vision is to be sustainable and socially responsible University that showcases local produce, promotes healthier eating options and supports our environment. The collaboration extends to working with the on-site concessions, departmental food offerings and ensuring alignment with the Student Union priorities.
By highlighting the alignment of the CCSG Strategies to the University Sustainability Strategy, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals we aim to bring more clarity to decision making surrounding food, how and where we source your food from and highlight new and existing responsibly sourced products and services that incorporate a more circular economy and lower the carbon footprint of our food-centric operations.
Learn more about the implementation of the strategy within each team, their policies, progress and how they are embedding sustainability into procurement decisions:
Recent Highlights
Community FridgeLink opens in a new window
Community Fridge is an initiative to help reduce food waste and distribute surplus food to people who can make the use of it.
We offer a variety of food items, all free of charge, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Come along and pick up what you need.
You can also sign up to become a volunteerLink opens in a new window.
Carbon CalculatorLink opens in a new window
The power of face-to-face events is unquestionable. At the same time, understanding the environmental impact of your event is crucial in today’s world where sustainability is a top priority. The Warwick Conferences' carbon calculator tool allows you to measure the carbon impact of your event and take steps to reduce it.
Triple Certified CoffeeLink opens in a new window
We work with all of our coffee suppliers to ensure they have a strong ethical policy on how coffee is grown and produced, to ensure the environment is sustained.
All of our coffee grounds are collected and go to composting.
Our Areas of Impact
Across the Campus Commercial Services Group,Link opens in a new window the sustainability strategy includes a commitment to pursue change across the following priority areas, which are measured and reported on annually. The strategic areas of impact are aligned with the University Sustainability Strategy, and aim to provide sustainable campus and commercial services that help fund teaching, research and facilities at the University of Warwick.
Goal:
To significantly lower the amount of waste products generated throughout the whole life cycle of our activities (cradle to grave).
Scroll through our teams to learn more about our actions:
Warwick Conference
- Food Waste bins have been in our kitchens since 2023, diverting over 2500 kg of food waste from general waste.
- Where possible, we use return to send schemes to minimise packaging waste, and reuse plastic containers - a great example of this are our Mushroom containers, with almost daily deliveries the return to sender scheme ensures we are keeping plastic in circular use.
Warwick Food Group
- Across the campus we are working to reduce the reliance on Single Use Coffee Cups, through incentives for bringing your own mug, and a trial ongoing to remove single use coffee cups from outlets in preference for rentable reusable mugs.
- Plastic bottles have been removed from our stores since 2023 as part of the reduction in single-use plastics across campus, this included offering wooden cutlery and paper straws instead of single use plastic alternatives.
-
In partnership with the Department of Chemistry the Community Fridge is an initiative to help reduce food waste and distribute surplus food to people who can make the use of it.
