REQUIREMENT: All coffee and tea must be certified Fair Trade and certified organic.
REQUIREMENT: All bananas and chocolate, in which the chocolate is the primary ingredient, must be certified Fair Trade.
REQUIREMENT: Single-use water bottles and coffee makers that use single-serving pods are not permitted.
RECOMMENDATION: AS groups should seek out locally grown, organic, and humanely raised food options whenever feasible.
Food production has a huge social and environmental impact. Food policy, however, is very difficult for organizations like A.S. because most student groups purchase food that has already been prepared rather than the raw ingredients. This makes sourcing food origins and an item’s impacts extremely difficult.
Coffee and tea are particularly important from a social justice perspective: because they are among the top products exported from developing countries to developed countries, their cultivation and marketing practices are vulnerable to abuse. Bananas and chocolate, similarly, are cultivated almost exclusively in the developing world. The A.S. Sustainability Policy focuses specifically on these items to ensure that A.S. can maximize its impact while avoiding a much more cumbersome and complicated food policy.
When purchasing drinks, avoid single-use water bottles by filling your reusable bottle at the hydration station in the MCC lobby or at one of many other locations on campus, and asking others to do the same. For events, use A.S. Recycling’s water service.