As a guest, it is easy to make smart environmental choices when you dine at a Sodexo café. We know today's college students want to do the right thing for the planet and we also understand you lead busy lives, so your Sodexo chefs and managers do a lot of the work for you behind the scenes!
This commitment was formalized with Sodexo's Better Tomorrow Plan. The Better Tomorrow Plan includes 18 commitments for a brighter future by focusing on four key priorities: health, planet, community and our people. Learn more about the Better Tomorrow Commitments.

Sodexo recycles large amounts of cardboard at our main facility in the Student Success Center! Three times per week, a large cart, densely packed with flattened cardboard boxes, is taken from the Student Success Center main kitchen by UMKC Campus Facilities Management staff to their cardboard compactor across campus. This amounts to over 500 lbs. of cardboard being recycled by Sodexo/UMKC Dining Services every week.

The UMKC Dining Hall has recently disposed of all trays from the dining program. Without trays, students will be more prone to strategically picking what foods they would like to eat for their meal thus ensuring more healthy choices. Also, there will be less waste production because students cannot pile food onto their trays so instead they will finish what food is on their plate before going to get more if necessary. Last year, the Dining Hall wasted 30 tons of food as a result of tray usage. Finally, trays waste gallons of water in order to be cleaned so without trays the Dining Hall can save lots of water.

UMKC Dining Services and Starbucks are committed to reducing our environmental impact through increased use of post-consumer recycled materials. We are using a 60% post-consumer fiber sleeve and a 10% post-consumer fiber cup.

Sodexo has partnered with Ecolab to help create a cleaner and healthier dining environment while conserving resources and reducing waste. Some of our initiatives include: No rinse products to save water, renewable packaging, and minimizied packaging.

Sodexo has partnered with Missouri Organics in an organic composting program. It is our intent that the reduced tonnage in food waste will allow for a cost savings over the life of the program. This program can not only be beneficial to the current Student Success Center operation, but also a foundational cornerstone to the sustainable focus in operating the Student Union.

UMKC serves only cage-free eggs at all locations.

We work closely with local produce distributors to maximize the fruits and vegetables purchased from local farms. We also purchase from local dairies, and participate in farm to school initiatives.  Tracking local purchases helps us to meet our Better Tomorrow Plan commitment of 20% local purchase by 2020. 

One specific example of a healthy choice we provide that is good for both you and the planet is with the seafood offered on your campus.  Your Sodexo team is committed to sourcing 100% of our contracted seafood from sustainable sources. We are working with our suppliers and distribution partners to phase out seafood that is not certified by either the Marine Stewardship Council or the Global Aquaculture Alliance's Best Aquaculture Practices Program. We are pleased that we were able to increase how much we spend on sustainable seafood significantly in both the United States and Canada.