Pac-12, a US college sports conference, has stepped up its sustainability efforts on event days by partnering with waste management platform Copia.
The platform will serve as an official member of Pac-12 Team Green, Pac-12’s sustainability platform.
Copia will ensure all remaining Pac-12 championship events, the 2019 Pac-12 Sustainability Conference and other major Pac-12 events will be zero food-waste events for the 2018-19 season.
The initiative got underway on Friday with the 2018 Pac-12 Football Championship at Levi’s Stadium, which Pac-12 said marked the first-ever college football championship to be a zero food-waste event.
Copia seeks to help businesses and event organisers prevent food waste and donate excess food to nearby non-profit organisations. Its platform uses AI-driven predictive analytics to help businesses and event organisers understand and reduce their food waste.
Copia provided a similar service at Levi’s Stadium in 2016, when it provided logistics for the first-ever zero food-waste Super Bowl. It has since worked with stadium tenant the San Francisco 49ers to pick up food from its player’s cafeteria throughout the year and at the stadium on game days.
Jamie Zaninovich, deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the Pac-12, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Copia as our newest Pac-12 Team Green partner and are excited we will now ensure that all of our championships this season will be zero food-waste events.
“We hope our work with Copia not only results in solving issues of hunger across our footprint, but also serves to bring awareness to such an important cause in all of our Pac-12 communities.”
Copia chief executive Komal Ahmad added: “We’re excited to be a part of the Pac-12’s greening efforts. They are ahead of the curve in transforming college sports into a platform for environmental progress and social good. With the help of the Pac-12, Copia will divert millions of pounds of excess food from the landfill. This year, Copia will feed more than 2 million people with food that would have otherwise gone to waste.”
Image: Pac-12
Share this