AMS lighter footprint strategy at 'The Perch'

The focus of our group’s project was to create a resource tool for those involved with the planning and coordinating of the upcoming fine dining restaurant ‘The Perch’, to be located in the new SUB at UBC. Building on the AMS Lighter Footprint Strategy, our methods for compiling resources and developing a handbook consisted of many steps, all which tied back to the vision of sustainability. These included the initial phases of reviewing literature and past AMS projects as well as conducting interviews with local restaurants holding a similar sustainable-fine-dining vision to gain insight on their motives and success factors. From this information our group compiled a list of criteria important for sustainable menu success, which included nutritional, organic, local/seasonal, fair trade, animal welfare, vegetarian, and vegan elements. We then conducted a simple survey to determine the importance of each criterion to a convenience sample, enabling us to gain insight as to how the categories ranked among the public and proceed to make recommendations that best matched the criteria demand. Upon analyzing the gathered data, we found a common theme of using and promoting local/seasonal foods from the restaurant interviews, and through the survey established a list of sustainable criteria ranked from most important to least important being; nutrition, local/seasonal, animal welfare, fair trade, organic, vegetarian, vegan. Further, our group was able to provide recommendations on narrowing ‘The Perch’s menu theme to ingredients that incorporate the popular criteria as indicated by restaurant interviewees and survey participants. Through developing this handbook, we hope to have addressed the needs of the project by targeting the vision of ‘The Perch” restaurant and compiling a list of resources that are easily accessible and useful. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”Land and Food Systems, Faculty ofUnreviewedUndergraduat

Aligning to the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Assessing Contributions of UBC Botanical Garden

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlines 17 goals for the wellbeing of people and the planet. The purpose of this study was to understand how University of British Columbia Botanical Garden (UBCBG) contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) and to identify opportunities for future action. To address this, we worked across departments to assess our programs and activities against the UN-SDG 17 goals and 169 targets. The UN-SDG indicators were only used to identify potential metrics that could be consider for future tracking. The main activities of UBCBG include ex situ plant conservation, sustainability education and community engagement. Our results found that UBCBG contributes to 12 of the 17 goals and 24 of the 169 targets. The two UN-SDGs with more targets aligned to UBCBG’s activities were Goal 15—Life on Land and Goal 12—Responsible Consumption and Production. Through its partnerships with other botanical gardens, research institutions and the regional government, the Garden amplifies its work at a global, national and regional level. We are re-imagining the role of botanical gardens in an age of equity, decolonization, the biodiversity crisis and the climate emergency. Since the UN-SDGs address both nature and people, they are an appropriate framework to guide our work.Science, Faculty ofBotany, Department ofReviewedFacult