Strategy for Promoting Sustainable Agro-Food Chain in Romanian Universities Catering Services

Abstract

The ecological footprint (EF) was proposed as a tool to measure progress towards the future goal of increasing the “Dunarea de Jos” University (UGAL) sustainability.
 In the calculation of product-specific EF were considered all the life cycle assessment (LCA) elements including energy, materials system and wastes.Comparative analysis of agro-food origin (local, regional, national, EU) were conducted for the 6 main ingredients included in the daily menus of UGAL students. The variables of EF for the transportation system were capacity and distance.
 The ecological footprint analysis (EFA) was conducted in order to analyze the environmental impact of improved catering processing system by using an increasing amount of 15-25% regional organic agro-foods and 50% less amount of meat in the daily meals created for “Dunarea de Jos” University Galati (UGAL) students in 2010.
 Independent studies, students collected data for the calculation of UGAL canteen footprint and analysis of surveys were conducted as methodology of the present research.
 The following results were obtained in case of Eco-strategy implementation in the UGAL canteen: (1) reducing of UGAL canteen EF with 17.27% in the food module; (2) reducing of EF per student at 0.7554 gha from 0.9132 gha; (3) a reducing of food costs with 20.83%. 
 Actual statistics discuss about the contraction of the student population with 20% in the next 10 years and in the condition of resources limitation the Eco-management became a necessity in order to respect the regional biocapacity.