Hospitality Services serves more than three million meals a year, during regular operations, to students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community.
Hospitality Services strives to help protect our environment through a progressive and creative sustainability program that also supports the Queen’s climate action plan and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Sustainable tastes better.
Queen’s is committed to ensuring the University operates in a sustainable manner, and food services can have a major impact on sustainability. Seven areas are addressed to nurture awareness and promote engagement among students, staff, and the campus community, including:
- Purchase and Transportation of Food: Minimization of environmental impact through the integration of seasonally available local foods and purchasing 100% sustainable seafood at all campus food outlets operated by Hospitality Services.
- Preparation: Initiatives to ensure the effective deployment of resource-saving practices.
- Waste Reduction: Reducing and minimizing the impact of food waste and single-use products whenever possible.
- Waste Diversion: Implementing, sourcing products, and ensuring compliance within all current programs.
- Food Insecurity: Supporting students experiencing food insecurity through the ‘Swipe It Forward Queen’s’ program and other partnerships such as ‘Soul Food’ for food recovery.
- Innovation and Education: Continuous evaluation and improvement of sustainability practices.
- Sustainable Design: Incorporation of sustainable principles in construction projects and equipment replacement.
Bottled Water Free Campus
Queen’s University has 190 drinking fountains and more than 75 bottle-fill stations located across campus.
The installations of the bottle-fill stations are in support of the campus-wide ban on bottled water sales and distribution that took effect on September 1, 2012.
Before this installation, an annual average of 98,000 bottles of water were sold on campus.
Read the Policy