(OR11-03-23) Evaluation of Sustainable Lunch Policies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Promoting Student Health

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of district-wide nutritional services policies on carbon emissions from school food meals, while maintaining nutritional standards for student health.

Methods: First we obtained publicly accessible menus for a month of meals across six U.S. school districts: New York, Long Beach, Chicago, Austin, Portland, and Miami. Utilizing life cycle assessment and established nutritional data, we quantified the carbon emissions and nutritional components for each menu.

Next, we modeled the impact of two different policy choices: (1) reducing the frequency of serving beef meals to once per month, and (2) implementing a Vegan Friday policy. We also modeled the combined savings expected from implementing both policies. For New York, we compared both the current carbon emissions and the modeled menu to the emissions of a 2004 menu. We applied the modeled savings per student to the population of each district to calculate a total carbon savings per district, and projected the savings out to the broader population of school children consuming meals in the US. We also compared the model school meals with respect to nutrient content (fiber, Vit C, Vit A, iron, and calcium).

Results: Our study found that the sustainable food policies implemented by the NYC school district were successful in reducing emissions. The emissions of NYC meals were approximately 46% lower than the average of the other five school districts.

When modeling the impact of policy choices, we found that emissions were reduced by between 22% and 51% between all districts. The most effective strategy for reducing emissions was replacing the highest emission meal with a vegan meal. The combination of both policies was particularly effective in Miami, resulting in 43% reduction in dietary CO2eq emissions.

On average, implementing the one beef day policy led to a savings of 34% in emissions, the highest vegan day policy led to a 32% reduction in emissions, and the average combination of both policies resulted in a 43% reduction in emissions. Nutritional components were determined to be adequate (and better in cases like fiber and vitamin A) to maintain student health.

Conclusions: The results demonstrate that sustainable food policies can have a significant impact on reducing emissions in school food systems, while potentially increasing the health of our students.

Funding Sources: RB is funded by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.