Sustainability
Our School actively engages our students, staff and the community in developing a sustainable environment which fosters and inspires best practice and also emphasises the importance of preparing and empowering individuals. This is done through engagement in our unique programmes and intentional initiatives across our three campus locations and in the wider community to become responsible for contributing to a sustainable future.
The School of Culinary Arts & Food Technology at TU Dublin is heavily invested in the Grangegorman Community Garden, with cross-disciplinary participation, offering education, support, and expertise to the pilot project. As members of the Grangegorman Community Garden Committee, and active growers in the garden, the school play a key role to develop the garden space and offer practised-based learning to students.
We want to provide the opportunity for our allotment in the Grangegorman Community Garden to act as an outdoor classroom, where students can learn first-hand about the soil and where all our food comes from. This experiential learning will enable our students to create a favourable food environment for a sustainable and healthy future.
Interest
To bring students with a passion for food and show them where food comes from and how it grows - the beds will enable hands-on, experiential and applied learning about growing and producing food sustainably while also learning about soil and biodiversity.
Desired Outcome
We want to build on our existing amenities located at our Blanchardstown (GLAS @TU Dublin) and Tallaght campus (Airfield Community Garden collaboration) - enabling students at Grangegorman to build their capacity and awareness of sustainable horticultural practices, taught through peer learning and with expert advice from horticultural lecturers. We want to advance what they learn in the garden to what happens in the kitchen: cooking and preserving techniques and sharing newly developed recipes to our community.
Contribution
We would like to organise field trips with students from primary and secondary schools showing them the link between soil, growing food and cooking.
N-TUTORR hosted a week of events from 26th February - 1 March 2024. Our School was delighted be involved and to host the following events under the theme 'Education for Sustainability'.
Monday 26 February 2024 11am - 6 pm - The Mindful Kitchen Applied Food Sustainability Event.
Location: Tallaght Room 101
Organisers: Lecturers Annette Sweeney, Niall Hill and Vourneen Hennessy
Contact: annette.sweeney@tudublin.ie
This was an In-person applied learning event for Culinary Arts students in collaboration with industry leaders that supports peer-to-peer learning in promoting a sustainability mindset in young chefs. We were delighted to invite JP McMahon - Michelin Chef Patron Aniar Restaurant and Author, Tom Hunt Eco-chef Food Writer and Author and Jordan Bailey - Michelin Chef Bech-Bailey who gave a talk/demonstration of how to implement their focus of sustainability into culinary arts. Student groups also had the opportunity to create a dish representative of this.
NTUTTOR Showcase POSTER The Mindful Kitchen Creative Food Sustainability
Two of our students gave a ‘Gasta’ presentation at the National NTUTTOR Showcase at Croke Park on Wednesday 17th April, which we are delighted to share with you: The Mindful Kitchen Creative Food Sustainability NTUTTOR Gasta Presentation April 2024.
Wednesday 28 February 10.30 am - 1.30 pm - Sustainable Food & Diversity Festival.
Location: Blanchardstown GLAS@TUDublin Garden (wet weather venue: T013 Horticulture Complex)
Organiser: Lecturer Rachel Freeman rachel.freeman@tudublin.ie
Final Year Horticulture students, lecturers, Global Action Plan Staff, and Avista Learners will lead a practical educational event on Landscape Biodiversity and Food Sustainability. This will be held in the GLAS@TU Dublin garden our living lab. This half day event comprises of hands on activities to include planting and landscape management techniques that support our landscape biodiversity, alongside planting, harvesting sustainable food, followed by a BBQ in the garden using harvested, foraged, sustainably produced and local foods.
Our School was successful in its application for SATLE funding in Semester 1 for 2023/2024. The aim of the project is to build capacity at academic and operational levels across staff and student bodies by the introduction of food waste initiatives, measurement techniques, dedicated monitoring equipment and curriculum devleopment. This project is taking place in the practical teaching laboratories (culinary labs, kitchens, bakeries, training restaurants/bar and the bakery shop.
The initial phase of this project includes:
- Piloting a smart bin systems https://www.positivecarbon.org/
- Running a Student Food Waste COmpetition with prizes of SATLE funded bursaries
- Hosting an expert speaker on food waste
- Food waste audit and survey for the School.
This project ensures food/recycling reduction and sustainabilty-focused learning outcomes become part of the all practical modules for our culinary students in the future. This project also contributes to lowering carbon emissions by the potential reduction of food waste in the school to meet the implementation of the University's Education for Sustainability Policty (ESD).
The team involved includes Lecturers Sheona Foley (Project Lead), Shannon Dickson, Judith Boyle, James Fox, Eamon Lynch, Paul Kelly, Roseanna Ryan and Head of School Dr Denise O'Leary.
Food Waste Champions emerge from Food Waste Competition (FUNDED BY SATLE)
The Competition Final ran on 9th February 2024 in the Central Quad, Grangegorman.
Our school are delighted to announce the winners of the Food Waste Competition, seeking food and recycling solutions in student training kitchens and bakeries. Thanks to our Judges: Colum Gibson (MTU’s Clean Technology Centre), Lauren McKenna (Positive Carbon), Niall Hill (TU Dublin Tallaght) and Judith Boyle (TU Dublin Grangegorman).
Our winners were: First place receiving a bursary of €500 Elsha Foley (2nd Year BA Culinary Arts), followed by the two runner-ups receiving bursaries of €250 each are Nathan Farrell (3rd Year BA Culinary Arts) and Emma Fagan (2nd Year BA Culinary Arts)
Student Finalists- Nathan Farrell (BA Culinary Arts); Shannon O’Neill, (BSc Bakery & Pastry Arts); Emma Fagan (BA Culinary Arts); Elsha Foley (BA Culinary Arts) and (Mohika) Mathur, Panchami Lingapatna Raghu, Aniruddha Bulbule, Rosmery Saldana and Gráinne O’Donnell
SDG Literacy Event
Our school were delighted to co-host a guest speaker event with the SDG Literacy Community of Practice following the competition. We welcomed Dr Colum Gibson from MTU's Clean Technology Centre who spoke about 'Learnings from the National Food Waste Characterisation Study to inform next steps in Food Waste Awareness for Students'.
Dr Olivia Freeman, Chair of the SDG Literacy CoP and lecturer Sheona Foley who organised this event noted that staff and students who attended were thrilled with the insights garnered. This speaker event is part of the SDG Literacy series of faculty talks which are running this academic year.
Dr Aimee Byrne (Sustainability Ed Lead), Dr Colum Gibson (Guest Speaker MTU/Clean Technology Centre), Dr Denise O'Leary (Head of School, SCAFT), Sheona Foley (Lecturer SCAFT and SDG Literacy CoP) and Dr Olivia Freeman (Chair SDG Literacy CoP and Senior Lecturer Faculty of Business)
In May 2023 we were delighted to be involved and support the recent launch of our ‘Green Living & Sustainability Community Garden’ (GLAS) at our TU Dublin Blanchardstown Campus in collaboration with Global Action Plan (GAP). We look forward to building this relationship further which will bring many benefits to the local community and wider community of Dublin.
Global Action Plan Ireland (GAP) is an environmental organisation with the mission to support sustainable communities across Ireland.
For more information about this fantastic initiative please see School Supports GLAS Community Garden Launch
Students from our BA in Culinary Arts programme based on our Tallaght Campus showcased their excellent innovative product development projects at their annual showcase event held in May.
Some of the unique approaches which the students developed and brought to full fruition from concept to final product delivery addressed the most pressing issues across the world at the moment including food sustainability, zero waste, health and wellness.
Our BA Culinary Arts students also gained great benefit and insights from a specially selected industry panel which included Richard Troman (Kerry Foods) and Gerard Whelan ( Brand Central).
We are delighted to congratulate Anissa Mokhtari - 3rd Year Student of our BA (Hons) in Botanical Cuisine who has being appointed as an N-TUTORR student champion for sustainability.
We wish Anissa well in her new role.
Our School are delighted to congratulate lecturers Annette Sweeney, Vourneen Hennessy and Niall Hill who were recently awarded a N-TUTTOR fellowship for the development of a new module' The Mindful Kitchen -Creative Food Sustainability'.
The Mindful Kitchen Project at the University offers modules on ‘Health and Wellbeing for Chefs’(2019) and 'Creativity & Social Gastronomy'(2021) to students on Higher Cert, BA and BSc (Hons) culinary programmes on our Tallaght campus. They focus on applied action and its impact on learning and future engagement with the topics in the workplace.
This fellowship will be used to co-create a new mindful-learning focused module, connecting chefs’ creativity with engaged action to act with responsibility to embed sustainability best practice in a professional kitchen. Developing ‘sustainability from within’ and positive wellbeing is the starting point, promoting self-reflection for personal sustainability, empathy and applied learning. It seeks to empower action and foster a sustainability mindset.
