Supporting sustainable and humane farming, promoting access to healthy, low impact, local, seasonal and organic diets and reducing food waste
Our food choices have a significant environmental impact.The carbon emissions from food production can make up over a third of anindividual’s carbon footprint. Unitec aims to support local sustainable foodproducers and reduce food waste by raising awareness about the environmentaland social impact of ‘food miles’ and the food we choose to eat.
Educate our students to help them make healthy, affordableand sustainable food choices and lead by example by selling sustainable food oncampus. Support research into sustainable food solutions in our communities.Including fruit trees, demonstration vegetable gardens, community gardens and beehives as the campusis redeveloped.
Unitec’s role in supporting local sustainable food choices andreducing food waste is to:
- Raiseawareness about the environmental and social consequences of food productionmethods and consumer choices and the need for developing resilient food systemsfor communities,
- Involve our studentsin creating, identifying, producing and selecting sustainable food solutionsand
- Lead byexample, procuring and selling sustainable food on campus. This can be as simple as offering more sustainable food choices, a vegetarian option can have ten times less carbon emissions than a red meat option.
- Establish and increase the proportion of domestically produced food being sold on campus to ≥ 70%
Situated on Unitec’s picturesque Mt Albert campus the Unitec Sanctuary Community Gardens are led by a passionate group of community gardeners. The garden is a space to learn organic gardening that encourages local, low impact, seasonal and organic diets. With an area of 1700m2 area surrounded by an abundance of flowers and a fruit forest. The garden is run by coordinators Sara Abott, Trevor and Bev Crosby, alongside individuals and families who manage private and shared allotments.Take a self-guided tour through the gardens, register for your own allotment or become a friend of the garden. Working bees are held on the second Sunday of each month from 10am till noon followed by a shared lunch, everyone is welcome.
TOUR OF UNITEC’s FOOD FOREST
Located next to Unitec’s Sanctuary Community Gardens an excellent food forest has been created for the local wildlife.