By making informed food choices on campus, we can all contribute to a more sustainable and climate-friendly food system!

The Climate-Friendly Food (CFF) Labels offer the campus community an opportunity to learn how our food choices can help reduce the university’s overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts, while supporting a more sustainable, resilient, and just food system. 

UBC is the first Canadian university to implement a project of this scale, positioning itself as a national leader in advancing Climate Action through Food Systems. 

This initiative is a multi-year, interdisciplinary research collaboration between students, staff, and faculty through the SEEDS Sustainability Program. Together, teams have developed, piloted, and evaluated the CFF Labels, including assessing how the labels influence awareness, knowledge, and purchasing decisions across campus. 

Menu items with a CFF label featuring the large green earth icon indicate meals with lower GHG emissions, water and land use, and a smaller eutrophication footprint compared to other options. 

The CFF Labels are grounded in a custom UBC-developed data calculation comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts—GHG emissions, water and land use, and eutrophication footprint—making it easier for the UBC community to make food choices that align with climate and sustainability goals. 

 
Choosing mostly green CFF-labeled foods helps achieve the ambitious 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from food systems! 
 

Picking a combination of green and yellow CFF-labeled foods still helps create a sustainable diet and cuts emissions by up to 30%. 

With more than 1,500 menu items evaluated by SEEDS student researchers, the CFF Labels make it easier for students to choose climate-friendly food options!

Where to find UBC's Climate-Friendly Food (CFF) Labels?

UBC Food services Locations:

Alma mater society (ams) menus:

UBC Campus Signature Events Menus:

The CFF Labels will continue to expand to more locations throughout the year, including retail food outlets across campus. Student-led research will monitor their impact during this expansion.

What is a Climate-Friendly Food System?  

In 2021, UBC adopted a definition of a Climate-Friendly Food System. The definition was developed by UBC’s Climate-Friendly Food Systems Action Team, a collaboration of students, staff, and faculty who work together to advance UBC’s CAP 2030 Food Actions.

Definition for a Climate-friendly food System:

UBC aims to operate within a climate-friendly, just and accessible food system, which means being committed to operating within planetary boundaries by reducing our GHG emissions footprint associated with our food systems and enhancing food system resiliency from production to end disposal and recovery, while producing positive outcomes for people, animals and planet (developed by the Climate-Friendly Food Systems Action Team, 2021).  

In 2024, food systems accounted for about 10% of UBC Vancouver’s total GHG emissions, based only on purchases by UBC Food Services and its franchises. This excludes food from other vendors, deliveries, food brought to campus, as well as emissions from food waste and packaging. Including these would significantly increase the total food-related emissions.   

UBC has set a target to achieve a 50% reduction in food systems emissions by 2030 in alignment with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. That's the threshold many scientists have said is crucial to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change.  
 
In an effort to tackle this, UBC is currently advancing the following bold food actions:

  • Develop campus-wide Climate-Friendly Food System (CFFS) definition, mandatory CFFS labelling, and a toolkit to increase sustainable dietary choices and habits. 

  • Develop a Food Waste Reduction and Recovery Strategy (including food-related waste). 

  • Amend the UBC Supplier Code of Conduct to reflect UBC’s climate commitments. 

  • Develop a Food System Resilience and Climate Action Strategy that holistically advances climate-friendly foods at UBC including climate mitigation and adaptation. 

  • Leverage and expand established interdisciplinary research initiatives, student and faculty-led research to advance climate-friendly food systems, spanning climate mitigation and adaptation. 

Learn more about sustainable food systems at UBC.

Frequently Asked Questions  

How do we determine what foods are climate-friendly?

UBC CFF labelling system is powered by a custom UBC-developed data calculation assessment, built specifically for our campus context. This unique platform was developed and refined through the leadership of UBC SEEDS students with mentorships from faculties in IRES (The Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability), demonstrating our commitment to student-driven climate action and innovation. 

The GHG emissions, land use, eutrophication, and water footprints of every menu item are assessed by summing the weight of each raw ingredient and multiplying it by its respective environmental impact factor. These footprint factors are drawn from the comprehensive dataset published by Poore and Nemecek (2018), which accounts for the life cycle impacts of food production, including farming, processing, and distribution, but excluding cooking emissions and food waste.  

Each environmental label on the menu is calculated per 100 grams of food, ensuring that portion size does not influence the rating. This standardization allows for a fair comparison between dishes, regardless of quantity served. 

Menu items marked with the largest green earth logo have been shown to generate at least 50% less environmental impact per 100g compared to the average item sold in our 2019 baseline year. 

Choosing more of these "green" dishes contributes directly to achieving the ambitious goals set out in UBC’s Climate Action Plan 2030, including a 50% reduction in food-related GHG emissions. 

Some foods that are Climate-Friendly do not align with my preferred food choices, cultural or traditional foods, or habits. With that in mind, how can I make climate-friendly food choices on campus?

Adopting climate-friendly food choices doesn’t mean sacrificing your traditions or preferences. Many climate experts agree that even small, daily changes - like adding more plant-based foods to your meals and reducing animal product consumption - can significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions while improving land and water use.  

For instance, a University of Oxford study found that if individuals following a red-meat heavy diet increased their intake of fruits and vegetables and reduced animal products, emissions could decrease by 29% by 2050.  

The Planetary Health Diet also supports sustainability while offering flexibility to adapt to various traditional diets. This allows us to celebrate our cultural diversity and personal dietary choices while contributing to climate action.  

Ultimately, the foods we choose are influenced by taste, cost, nutrition, and convenience. By staying informed and making mindful adjustments where possible, we can reduce our environmental impact while still honoring the diversity of lived experiences we come from.  

Are climate-friendly foods more expensive?

The university is taking bold steps to ensure that the campus community has access to wholesome, sustainable, local and diverse foods.  
 
One initiative is All Access Dining, which was launched at UBC's three resident dining halls where the Climate-Friendly Food Labels are currently being displayed. Since all students pay the same amount to eat as much as they care to while at that location, all food items will be the same price regardless of whether they are deemed Climate-Friendly or not.   
 
At the AMS Student Nest, where CFF labels have been added to menu items at the Gallery Patio & Lounge, preliminary analysis shows that the most climate-friendly foods are not always more expensive than those labeled as less climate-friendly. In fact, at the Gallery, some of the climate-friendly items are among the least expensive on the menu.  
As the university continues its work on building a Climate-Friendly food system, a lens of equity and affordability will be applied to all actions. Visit the Centre for Climate Justice at UBC to learn more.  
 

Does the calculation integrate the GHG emission coming from the transportation of food?

The calculation does not integrate all the GHG emissions coming from the transportation of ingredients.  

Additionally, since the production of food creates the most emissions, the GHG emission from the cooking process and food waste were not considered for this phase of the project. The GHG emissions associated with the cooking process (i.e. electricity & natural gas) are included in UBC building-level GHG goals and reporting as part of UBC's annual Climate Change Accountability Report (CCAR). Additional emissions from food waste decomposition are accounted for in the Waste emissions as part of the CAP2030 goals. 
 

 

Do you have any additional questions related to the Climate Friendly Food Labels project or UBC’s actions around reducing emissions from food systems on campus? Send them to: seeds.info@ubc.ca.  Learn more about how you can support Climate-Friendly Food Systems at UBC.