Student dining services go green
DePaul’s environmentally-friendly initiatives have not gone unnoticed as the university can now boast that it is an officical Fair Trade university.
The Fair Trade website states that, “Fair Trade ensures consumers that the products they purchase were grown, harvested, crafted and traded in ways that improve lives and protect the environment.” This means that Dining Services will only purchase foods and materials from ethical sources. Case in point, none of DePaul’s dining hall food was frozen for months before it was served and DePaul apparel was not sewn by children in Malaysia.
DePaul dining areas now offer more reusable service ware, like coffee mugs at Brownstones and the red baskets at Sizzle.
When asked about the practicality of this, especially in regards to whether or not students will actually take advantage of these resources, DePaul SGA Senator, Joe Arcus said “I think DePaul students will be happy to see more reusable service ware. While I do think that ‘to-go’ containers should still be available, students will appreciate the durability, homely feel, and environmental benefits of reusable service ware. It’s something I want to expand the use of.”
Dining Services also partnered with the Chicago Biofuels program last year, which, according to their website, is committed to using locally sourced vegetable oils to make fuel in order to make the city more fuel independent.
Dining services sends them old cooking oil which is then sent to Loyola’s Biodiesel Lab, and is consequently used to power Loyola buses on campus.
“Environmentally, these small changes resulting from the new sustainability program will hopefully lower DePaul’s carbon footprint.”
In 2010, DePaul had a carbon footprint and sustainability assessment which stated that DePaul’s carbon footprint had decreased by 20 percent since 2001. In all likelihood, it has lowered even more in recent years.
“However, DePaul’s operations will have a more positive human impact as well,” Arcus said. “Sustainability is more than protecting the environment for the future. It’s protecting people in the present.”
Misconduct reporting service EthicsPoint comes to DePaul
The Office of Institutional Compliance announced last week the creation of a new web portal to report suspected misconduct. The website will provide a second option for students, faculty and staff to report misconduct besides the other method, a hotline.
The added option comes after an academic quarter that saw considerable student backlash to the university’s handling of the sexual assault issue.
Director of Compliance and Risk Management Emily Opalski, however, said that there is no connection between the changes and the protests.
“DePaul recently switched to a new vendor that offers a web-reporting tool, and DePaul adopted it to give our community more reporting options,” Opalski said.
The vendor, EthicsPoint, controls the website. According to its website, the company is committed “to ensure that you can communicate issues and concerns associated with unethical or illegal activities safely and honestly with an organization’s management or the board of directors while maintaining confidentiality.”
When there is a new report, “the vendor informs Compliance and Risk Management,” Opalski said. “Compliance and Risk Management then shares the report with a team of appropriate individuals, and a decision is made about how to proceed.”
According to Opalski, about 10 reports a year is typical for DePaul through the hotline with allegations of fraud, conflict of interest, and misuse of university property most commonly being reported.
“As other software tools become available in the future, DePaul will review them to assess whether they would be appropriate additions to our portfolio of both compliance and reporting tools,” Opalski said.