12.02.2009

Aramark Sustainability Stewards Conference, 11/2-11/4

This is dated information, but I have been remiss in not posting about the Aramark Sustainability Stewards Meeting that we hosted here at UVa last month. Sustainability Stewards and Coordinators from around the country (Arizona, Minnesota, Vermont, Texas, Idaho, Florida, headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and more) gathered in Charlottesville for an intense three-day meeting in which we covered the Green Thread pillars (Aramark's Sustainability initiative), visited local farms, and a lot in between. Every account - not to mention region - is in a very different place than the others, meaning that most of what we dealt with was very top-level and broadly applying to Aramark Higher Education. Consistency is important, but it's also worth noting that some of those differences between accounts are very valuable (Florida's local growing season in comparison to ours, for example) and not to be overlooked.

While figuring out how to strike that balance during the conference, I was fortunate enough to meet the many creative thinkers that make up the Higher Ed sustainability team: I have sent nearly countless emails to some of them in the past month, and appreciate just how important collaboration is in our line of work.

Enjoy a few photos of our time together:

The Armark Sustainability Stewards team

At one of our brainstorming sessions

Touring the Monticello visitor's center with Monticello Garden Director Peter Hatch

Dinner at the lovely Colonnade Club

Panorama PayDirt owner Steve Murray explains his composting operation

The team learns about the composting process

Wolf Creek Farms owner John Whiteside chats with me about his cattle operation

Part of the Wolf Creek herd

Perfect Flavor sorbet at our last conference lunch

No comments:

Post a Comment