Sustainability

Dartmouth Dining takes advantage of its location in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, in between the beautiful hills of Vermont and New Hampshire. This regional area has a plethora of farms that provide organically grown fruit and vegetables, grass-fed beef, delicious cheeses, breads, and other farm-based foods.

Farmers Market

Enjoy a real summertime treat! Every Friday, from mid-June to mid-August, Collis Café is a buzz with people selecting fresh fruits and vegetables, sandwiches, smoothies, and more from our very own farmers market. Seasonal produce is grown at Dartmouth's Organic Farm and other local farms. Come check it out.

We offer a reusable container program called "Green2Go" for take-out in the Class of 1953 Commons and the Courtyard Café to eliminate unnecessary waste. This program, which started in the summer of 2017, has eliminated the need for tens of thousands of plastic clamshell containers and is widely popular.

To start using the Green2Go container, pay a one-time $10 materials fee at 53 Commons or Courtyard Café. In return, you'll receive a Green2Go carabiner that can be redeemed at '53 Commons for a Green2Go container that can be filled with all-you-care-to-eat. Used containers can be returned to any of the dining venues ('53 Commons, Novack Café, ramekin, or Collis Café), where you'll receive another carabiner. And, the eco-cycle continues around again.

Read more about the Green2Go program.

Americans use 500,000,000 single-use straws every day and most of those are plastic. We're excited to offer paper straws to help reduce Dartmouth's long-term environmental impact. You can help reduce our impact even further by choosing to skip the straw altogether.

The Take Less – Waste Lessprogram is a dining initiative to focus attention on food waste within the Class of 1953 Commons. By taking less food initially, and then coming back for more if you are still hungry, we can dramatically reduce food waste. It’s a simple concept with dramatic results. Be sure to do your part and make Take Less – Waste Less the Big Green way.

Dartmouth Dining has implemented a closed-loop program to manage the delivery, filtration, and disposal of cooking oil. A third-party company delivers oil to a storage tank where it is pumped directly into the fryer vats. The system tracks usage and reorders oil automatically, and has a filtration system that eliminates soy as an allergen from the soy-based oil. Once used, the drained oil is picked up by the vendor and turned into biodiesel. Program benefits include:

• eliminating cooking oil spills
• eliminating packaging and waste
• reducing potential injuries
• potentially decreasing our oil costs

Dining Services is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified, the first college or university in New England to achieve this standard. The Marine Stewardship Council is an international organization working towards protecting our oceans and seafood for the future. MSC seafood is sustainable and traceable from the ocean to the dining hall.

Read more about Dartmouth's sustainably caught fish.