Simply look for the green Earth icon on the menu in all dining halls to easily identify which foods are climate friendly.

Incorporating more of these foods into your diet, instead of higher impact ones, can make a great difference without having to make a giant shift in your diet.

The climate friendly icon includes all plant-based foods, as well as proteins such as fish and poultry, while higher impact foods – like pork, beef, and some dairy products – are excluded. Thresholds are based on data from the World Resources Institute’s Cool Food Calculator. The calculations include factors from agricultural supply chains, excluding land use change.

The graph below shows which foods are included and omitted, and illustrates how choosing climate friendly foods can have a great impact on lowering your carbon footprint. Foods to the left of the dashed line are considered to be climate friendly, while foods to the right of the dashed line have a higher environmental impact.

Special thanks to the Sustainability Innovation Seed Grant Low Carbon Dining Project team who collaborated with us on this initiative.

The Climate Friendly designation applies to an individual serving. A meal consisting of multiple servings of a Climate Friendly item or multiple Climate Friendly items may not fall within the Climate Friendly threshold. Additionally, some items can be customized – for example, adding cheese to a burger – which could make an item exceed the Climate Friendly threshold.

This is a new initiative, if you see a menu item that you think either should or should not have the Climate Friendly designation, please reach out to Lexie Raczka.