Every meal leaves a footprint: big ones or small ones with impacts on ourselves and the environment. The footprint is bigger for meals with a high proportion of meat or if the ingredients have travelled thousands of kilometres before landing on our plates. More than 40 percent of our meals are eaten in canteens and restaurants nowadays. Because of that, out-of-home catering plays a significant role when it comes to environment and climate protection.
KlimaExpo.NRW, an initiative by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, has honoured the research project NAHGAST (sustainable production and consumption in out-of-home catering) for its exemplary dedication to climate protection. CEO Dr. Heinrich Dornburch handed the certificate to Prof. Dr. Petra Teitscheid of FH Münster. The researcher from the Institute of Sustainable Nutrition (iSuN) leads the project NAHGAST in which several partners from research and practice are participating. Its object of research is how to support catering businesses on their way to an ecological, healthy and socially acceptable range of meals.
"The project not only raises awareness for a more sustainable menu composition. It also actively provides concrete concepts for facilitating climate-friendly actions in catering," says Dornbusch. KlimaExpo.NRW aims to make climate-relevant projects more known. Until 2022, the initiative presents outstanding examples for climate protection in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1000 steps. NAHGAST has been included as step 297.
At the end of April 2018, the project will be officially completed. On www.nahgast.de, the researchers then want to provide an comprehensible and scientifically substantiated online calculator for canteens and restaurants to be able to determine the sustainability value of a meal.