Final Report, TGIF 2014/15 Grant Cycle - draft
Project Leaders: Jennifer McDougall, Beth Piatnitza. Maggie Hardy, Student Intern Lead
Project Title: Telegraph Area Green Business Certification and Outreach (Telegraph Green)
Fiscal Sponsor: UC Berkeley Real Estate Services/Capital Projects
Project Summary
Goals of the project: In the fall of 2013, a waste audit performed on Upper Sproul Plaza made
the following conclusions:
“One noticeable component of this audit was the large amount of packaging and waste
from off campus food vendors. This includes: Chipotle, Subway, San Francisco Soup
Co., Jamba Juice, Starbucks, Sweetheart Café, Sheng Kee Bakery, and Yogurtland. Upper
Sproul is especially open to waste from off campus sources due to its proximity to
Bancroft and Telegraph. If food packaging materials were all recyclable or compostable
from these main vendors, this would greatly assist in the decrease in landfill items and
towards our zero waste by 2020 goals. The City of Berkeley has the same zero waste by
2020 goals so we could partner with the city in this endeavor to create a similar waste
diversion system on Telegraph, Bancroft, and the surrounding areas (Upper Sproul
Waste Audit Results, October 2013, compiled by Emily McKeon).”
The project originally sought to address this concern through asking businesses in the south
campus area to participate in Alameda County’s Green Business Certification program.
The project additionally sought to raise awareness among students of green principles when
dining out, to guide their consumer behavior (and demand) of businesses in the south campus
area. The idea is that our community standards on campus, such as no sale of bottled water,
compostable take away containers, high use of reusable mugs and containers, etc., should not
be left at the threshold between town and gown, but should also influence the largely studentoriented commercial district, resulting in benefits for the campus waste stream.
Accomplishments of the project: Hundreds of students were engaged in a campaign
promoting reuse rather than disposables at south campus restaurants. Engagement took the
form of signing a petition, posting on social media, contacts through tabling at restaurants,
Sproul Plaza, events, and the Crossroads dining commons. See attached petition text and
samples of social media engagement. On the Monday of Earth Week, our kick off event gave
out 100 mason jars in less than an hour to students and visitors on Sproul Plaza, including an
insert promoting reuse.
Restaurants in the south campus area were repeatedly contacted by students and asked to
participate in reducing waste by promoting reusables, providing discounts. Notable successes
included:
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Final Report, TGIF 2014/15 Grant Cycle - draft
Share Tea: discount for reusable jars/cups; discount for reusable straw; decision to sell reusable
steel straws at the location. (Note that this franchise location is owned by a Cal alum who
generally operates the business in a very friendly manner towards Cal-related activities.)
Jamba Juice: Offers ten cent discount for reusable cup; posted signage that remains in place to
advertise this (otherwise covert) fact.
Dumpling Express: Offers discount if customer brings their own container for dumplings.
Other restaurant participants included local coffee shops and Noah’s Bagels.
The project was covered in the Berkeley News Center and in the Telegraph Business
Improvement District’s monthly newsletters.
Challenges and obstacles: We reframed our work for the spring semester, after learning
through hard work in the fall that south campus restaurants were not able or willing to
participate in the county green business certification process. We learned that part of the
character of most south campus quick serve businesses is that they have low profit margins, and
people have limited time or interest for “extra” items. We also began to understand that south
campus businesses are literally inundated with requests for special participation from students
and student groups. Many, such as Fred’s Market or apparently Yogurt Park, have a policy of
simply saying no to any request, no matter how small and no matter how easy we could make it
for them to say yes, as the best means of managing the inundation. We also found that some
major chains (not including Jamba Juice) were very difficult to contact, to get answers. These
included Chipotle and Yogurtland.
Additionally, we would have welcomed more collaboration with other groups on campus
working on waste. For example, we missed the chance to get valuable data from the Sproul
waste audit; and there were overlapping contacts with local businesses, and overlapping social
media outreach, that could have been coordinated for better results. Maybe SERC or TGIF
could have a waste coordinating committee?
Lessons learned: We’d like to share these highlights of our conversations since the close of
Earth Week, as lessons learned/best practices for the future:
What worked:
(1) Specific requests from students to businesses. Businesses were generally more
responsive to student requests than to staff requests; businesses in the south campus
area are quite accustomed to requests from students.
(2) People really enjoyed the mason jar giveaway. The joy that day was a highlight.
(3) People seemed to enjoy signing things (petitions, pledges), and enjoyed stopping at our
tables to spin for (reusable) prizes.
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Final Report, TGIF 2014/15 Grant Cycle - draft
(4) It helped to get an email from the ASUC president out to the student body – boosted our
facebook presence.
(5) Positive or funny social media postings drew more attention/likes. (also: squirrels).
(6) We were very lucky to have our team expanded by volunteers from GETH. They were a
great resource.
What did not work:
(1) Requests tied to off-campus programs were generally not well received by businesses
(County Green Business; ReThink Disposable). Perhaps these seemed too long term,
with heavy administrative/bureaucratic requirements. In the quick serve-oriented
district, in depth programs are a difficult sell.
(2) Coordination with other campus groups working on waste – did not readily occur.
(3) Negative social media (emphasizing birds dead from eating plastic, etc.)
Sustainability impact: Our project ended up being an educational and outreach project, where
the impact is difficult to quantify. We’re proud of the contacts with both businesses and the
campus community.
We expect one ongoing benefit may be a little uncomfortable to mention: we recognize that this
is the first project to focus beyond the campus boundary. But the potential exists for great
sustainability impact as TGIF broadens its scope to include the district where so many
undergraduates first get their sense of starting their own households, their own consumer
patterns.
Future thinking: The Telegraph district could be addressed much more thoroughly, and could
perhaps become the first green student-oriented, quick-serve focused business district in the
country. Portland’s “eco district” movement – although more oriented to capital development perhaps provides a model. San Diego’s North Park “Eco District” has a materials management
strategy that does community fundraising through recycling, and has embraced the “Straw
Pledge”, where restaurants wait until the customer asks before providing a straw.
We note that the goal post for “zero waste” may be moving. Portland no longer supports
compostable takeaway containers in the commercial waste stream; our focus, both city and
campus, should be on finding new ways to provide food service that relies upon reusable
containers.
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