Best Practices in University-Based Food Waste Reduction: Education, Technology, and Community Engagement
Zsófia Árvai
ABSTRACT
Food waste is an urgent global sustainability issue, and higher education institutions play a key role in developing and testing effective reduction strategies.This paper presents best practices from four leading universities—Oxford, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard—highlighting their different but complementary approaches. Oxford emphasizes behavioral change through education campaigns; MIT focuses on technological innovation with a food management app; Stanford has introduced a student-led food donation system; and Harvard supplements institutional waste monitoring with behavioral experiments in consumer labeling. These examples show that multi-level interventions combining education, technology, and community engagement can significantly reduce food waste on campuses and promote sustainable consumption habits. The paper concludes with a framework that allows these practices to be applied to other universities.
