Dining Goes Green!

Housing and Dining Services has made it a priority to implement programs and practices that are healthier for you and the environment. Creating a more environmentally friendly dining program means providing you with choices to help you minimize your impact on the environment. Sustainability isn't just a buzzword at Housing and Dining Services; it is a way of life we strive to follow everyday.

Helping our Community

We take steps everyday towards a more sustainable dining program to make Carnegie Mellon greener and help the Pittsburgh community.

• Our dining vendors purchase foods from local farms and vendors to help support the Pittsburgh community, provide fresher foods and cut down on pollution due to transportation. CulinArt, our primary dining vendor, buys almost 15% of their food from local vendors and serves milk from a local dairy at all of their locations. Mitchell's Mainstreet Market and The Exchange also have local milk available for purchase.

• Many of our dining locations donate their excess food to local food banks.

• Dining Services also works to help the larger global community. Many of our dining locations including La Prima Espresso, Mitchell's Mainstreet Market, Tazza D'Oro and The Zebra Lounge serve fair trade coffee so you can drink your morning cup with a good conscience.

Good for You and The Environment

Many dining locations around campus serve organic products and hormone-free meat. By choosing to eat organic and hormone-free foods, you are helping fewer pesticides and chemicals enter the environment. 

• All of the chicken served at CulinArt locations is hormone and antibiotic free. 

• Entropy, the campus convenience store, has an entire section devoted to organic produce and foods.

• Tazza D'Oro at the R Bar Café, in the Gates and Hillman Centers, is very committed to serving fair trade and organically grown coffee.

Food and Beyond

In 2006, the Carnegie Mellon Café, located in Resnik House, received a Gold LEED Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The café was renovated with sustainable materials and improvements were made to make the space more energy efficient. This renovation is just one step in our vision for a greener dining program.

What You Can Do

You can also do your part to decrease our environmental impact. Use the recycling bins provided at our dining locations. Only purchase food that you think you will eat to reduce food waste. Most of our dining locations use a trayless dining program, which has been found to reduce food waste on some college campuses by up to 50%. Take advantage of the organic and fair trade options at many of our dining locations to show our vendors that you support these steps towards sustainability. Together we can make Carnegie Mellon a greener campus.