Sustainability Objectives 2025

Hospitality Services are pleased to be part of Aberystwyth University’s ongoing commitment to sustainability in all of it operations. We present this Sustainability Action Plan as a working document. As with all such plans, they are only possible through the engagement of our staff, customers and suppliers.

We welcome all inputs to this plan as we strive towards greater sustainable practices and carbon neutrality.

Palm Oil

Overall objective: We seek to ultimately remove all products that contain non-sustainable palm oil from Hospitality Services. We seek to do this by supplier engagement as well as providing customers with the information as to which products contain palm oil. We advocate that sustainable accredited palm oil (RSPO) is produced in a way that is sustainable by helping to halt deforestation; assists in communities and workers being paid fairly; as well as protecting wildlife and environment.

Actions for achievement:

Action	Areas to be put in place	Objective of actions	Target date for launch
Marking of products that contain palm oil with the following label system: Green (none); Yellow (palm oil but RSPO); Red (non-accredited)	All outlets	We seek to give customers the pertinent information so that they can make decisions to buy that product or not.	in place and ongoing
Allocation of resources to establish palm oil contents of products purchased via purchasing platform and discussion with suppliers	Penbryn admin team	To ensure information is collected and verified on products. Engage with suppliers to inform of products that are non-compliant and therefore likely to be delisted.	ongoing
Review of all products containing non-RSPO palm oil, with alternatives if possible.	Penbryn admin team	To create information regarding products to be replaced with alternatives	in place and ongoing
Review of Palm Oil policy	All outlets	To ensure policy is working and needs further review	August 2025

https://rspo.org/why-sustainable-palm-oil/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA8t2eBhDeARIsAAVEga3pVSVu_S_PnMwkwaA0wwkK7gCN7xOypNNi3pShLmi1VWQ6w2w6t-QaAubjEALw_wcB

Reduce food waste

Overall Objective: All food that is purchased and then not consumed is to be avoided to reduce carbon footprint and to increase sustainable practices by customers and staff. This will be by reduction in plate waste (food that is purchased, but not eaten in our outlets), reduction in the amount of food going out of date, as well as reduction in food production waste. All waste that is produced is to then be placed into food recycling bins at all outlets.

Actions for achievement.

Action	Areas to be put in place	Objective of actions	Target date for launch
Continue discount for all food near sell by date by ‘when it gone its gone’ stickers	All outlets	To sell food with a short date life left at or below cost price to ensure it is consumed rather than thrown away	Ongoing
Menu design to allow for short term special offers for produced food from kitchen, such as a £4.00 main course	Food hall, Blas Gogerddan	To allow us to sell food that has been over produced quickly at cost to students.	Ongoing
Measurement of food waste produced by amount in food bins by a weekly check before collection.	Food Hall, Student Union	To monitor our food waste and so help to monitor the success of the above practices	ongoing review August 2025
Control of the amount of hot food produced for service on the hot counters towards the end of service times from 15 minutes before the counter will close. So not to replace dishes that have sold out	Food hall, Blas Gogerddan	To reduce the amount of food that has been cooked and cannot be reused and so has to be thrown away.	Ongoing

https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/take-action-save-food/our-planet-your-food?gclid=Cj0KCQiA8t2eBhDeARIsAAVEga1lzCPC5arUHVzL9YEROuFHeu8M5hruklw7x67EyIEBegRTtGpBBPcaAjsWEALw_wcB

Reduce disposable items used on campus

Overall Objective: - In our ‘Grab n Go’ culture there is always a requirement for some disposable products to be used. However we will firstly seek to ensure all disposables used are either recyclable or bio degradable. Then we will seek to reduce the amount of disposables used, and to encourage practices that reinforce this. We will also seek to ensure more material is recycled where possible.

Actions for Achievement.

Action	Areas to be put in place	Objective of actions	Target date for launch
Increase dispo cup levy to 40p with sales of keep cups continuing at cost	All Outlets	To reduce disposable cup usage across campus, the hardest item to be recycled.	ongoing review August 25
All in house food and drink served on reusable china and glass	Food Hall, Pantycleyn, CAFFIbach	To ensure disposable is used for takeaway only.	in place and ongoing
Promotion of Plastic Free Day across campus	All Outlets	To increase the dialogue and discussion in the reduction of single use plastics.	October 2025
Monitoring of landfill and recycled waste streams and record . Along with review of all waste in line with new regulations	All outlets	To enable us to monitor the decrease in use of landfill refuse	August 2025
Make plastic packaging be a negative score on supplier tenders for Hospitality	Central purchasing	To encourage recyclable materials for goods packaging and delivery.	Ongoing
To replace all disposable cups used in conference delivery by purchase of reusable alternative and put structure in place for the distribution and collection of	Conference team	To stop all disposable cup usage in conference delivery.	Aspirational
Only serve refillable water bottles in Medrus Suite	Conference team	To reduce plastic usage unnecessarily	Ongoing

https://wrapcymru.org.uk/

Journey towards Net Zero Carbon

Overall Objective: - Aberystwyth has committed to achieving a nett zero target by the year 2030-31. Hospitality services will undertake to monitor and review its practices to reduce our emissions within scope 1, 2 and 3 of our operations.

Scope 1 is direct emissions sources resulting from company owned machinery, facilities, and vehicles. Scope 2 is indirect emissions sources associated with the generation of electricity, heat, steam and/or cooling, Scope 3 is indirect emissions resulting from all other activities and sources not covered in Scope 2; includes business travel, commuting, waste, and third party deliveries.

Actions for Achievement.

Action	Areas to be put in place	Objective of actions	Target date for launch
We would like to action carbon signage on menus to help steer public behaviour	All outlets	To enable our customers to make informed purchasing decisions.	Aspirational
To require all suppliers to be committed to carbon zero through their operations via the tender process	Central purchasing	To help reduce the carbon from scope 3	Ongoing
Check fridge seals to reduce energy usage and efficiency	All outlets	To reduce energy usage	July 2025 and annual
Only use electrical vehicles within the department	Hospitality services	2 new electric vans purchased	Ongoing
Remove all Gas equipment at the end of its life	All outlets	To reduce carbon produced in food production	Ongoing
Review of kitchen equipment and usage via energy performance monitoring Leading review of production methods and equipment lifecycle	All outlets	To reduce energy usage	Ongoing
Enable the reading of the power usage for all outlets individually	All outlets	To enable staff to monitor and see energy usage and effect savings	Ongoing

https://www.gov.wales/net-zero-wales

Ethical practises and purchasing

Overall Objective: - Hospitality Services measures its performance using the triple bottom line method of people, profit and planet. We seek to ensure that we follow the ethic purchasing guidelines by looking to ensure we follow the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

We hope that by asking for ethical and sustainable behaviour from our suppliers we can encourage and celebrate behaviour which is to the benefit of us all.

Actions for Achievement.

Action	Areas to be put in place	Objective of actions	Target date for launch
Require all suppliers to have signed up to pay the living wage	Central Purchasing	Promote fair pay for all employees and sub-contractors	Ongoing
Ensure all companies that supply Hospitality Services have signed up to comply with the 17 UN sustainable Goals	Central Purchasing	To promote good practice in our suppliers	Ongoing
To set purchasing policy of buying local, Welsh then British where possible within the University financial procedures	Central Purchasing	To enable us to buy as local produce as possible	Ongoing
Ask our major suppliers to supply annual measurement criteria for their sustainable practices to ensure continued improvement	Central Purchasing	To promote continued improvement by our suppliers for their sustainable and Nett Zero advancement	Ongoing
Ensure all suppliers have signed up to be compliant with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 as a prerequisite for dealing with Hospitality Services	Central Purchasing	Via annual questionnaire to all suppliers to ensure compliance	Ongoing
Work towards the adoption of ‘Menus for Change ‘ in all of our food purchase, production and service	All outlets	To be used as a guide for our food production for all of our areas to assist in our improved sustainability	Ongoing

https://www.tuco.ac.uk/procurement/sustainability/menus-of-change

Sustainability Review 2023

As part of our Sustainability goals for 2023, we set out an action plan for all the areas and objectives that we wished to achieve for 2023. This is a snapshot on what we have achieved in the year, as well as highlighting areas and targets that we were unable to complete.

Our Action plan was set out by area of focus and the report is mirror of this layout for ease of reference. This review will then form part of our setting of our objectives for 2024.

Palm Oil

We have introduced the traffic light system for all wrapped products on campus with appropriate signage.
Where any products have non-RSPO palm oil we have looked to source alternatives, this is ongoing.
Policy was reviewed and updates for 2024.

Reduce Food Waste

Continuation of ‘When its gone’ promotions has saved 9406 items of food being thrown away, by discounting of short dated stock.
Value meal and discount mains have allowed for reduction in food waste by allowing small batch sizes of dishes to be used up.
Food waste monitoring has shown a 17% reduction in food waste on the year.

Reduce Disposable items on Campus

25p cup levy has been introduced alongside sales and give away of keep cups to students and staff to promote use.
Take up of keep cups by staff has been encouraging, whilst less so with students.
All in house food is now served on China where dish wash facilities are present, namely in the Foodhall, Caffi bach and Blas Gogerddan.
We have removed all sauce sachets from use on campus.
Plastic packaging reduction was achieved by inclusion as part of tender process for suppliers.
Plastic free day launched in outlets las April to be increased in scale for 2024.

Net Zero

We required all suppliers to be committed to Net Zero through the tender process to assist in our scope 3 emissions.
All new equipment purchased was Grade A energy usage.
We were unable to calculate to the carbon in our menus, but this is still ongoing target for 2024.
We will be looking to review all equipment to reduce our energy usage, in line with capital availability for this.

Ethical Practices and Purchasing

Local Welsh coffee supplier appointed in 2023.
Adoption of the Menus for change as well as membership of the Sustainable restaurant Association to allow for annual audit of sustainability for the department for submission to people and planet audit.