- Top Stories
- Knowledgebase
- Speakers
- Conferences
- Multimedia
- Research News
- Media Mentions
- Stanford Business Magazine
- May 2008
- Features
- Knowledge Network
- Columns
- Class Notes
- Past Issues
- Search Stanford Business
Don’t Eat the Spoon that Feeds You
They say green is the new black, but to the Business School green means more than one fashion layer—it extends from the construction plans for the School’s future campus down to the environmentally sustainable practices of its current cafeteria.
Over the past year, the Arbuckle Cafe in the basement of the old GSB building has led the University in composting and recycling. In January 2007 it was the first food campus to switch to bio-degradable “spudware” made of potato starch and food containers of sugar cane and polyacetic acid. Currently the only items in Arbuckle that are not compostable are hot coffee lids and the wraps on pre-packaged grab-and-go items, like chips and snack bars.
If you can’t eat it or compost it, you can recycle it, and, according to Julie Muir of Stanford Recycling, the Business School leads in that as well. “I am very thankful to Arbuckle for taking the lead because it is helping me to encourage other campus cafes,” Muir said. “They are a model program for the rest of the campus.”
The Business School is green academically as well. Last year, for the second time, it took the top spot in “Beyond Grey Pinstripes,” a biennial survey of business schools by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education that evaluates how well schools integrate environmentally sound practices into the curriculum.