Local Artisan is part of Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow Plan, a comprehensive sustainability initiative that also includes other tools to help locations make progress on goals like local sourcing, seasonable menu development, sustainable ingredients, varied and balanced food options and supporting local communities.
Also included in the Better Tomorrow arsenal is SMART (Sustainability Management And Reporting Tool), a comprehensive, yet easy to use dashboard that helps managers establish baseline sustainability performance, prioritize initiatives, and track continuous improvement in four key best practice areas—carbon and energy, water, waste, and healthy/sustainable food and environments.
Launched early this year at 22 locations, SMART enables clients to analyze up to 150 separate actions that can improve measurable performance in each respective area. In addition, SMART allows clients to estimate energy use and the associated climate impact, review progress and trend data in either a summary dashboard or in a detailed layout, view customized and specific recommendations for making immediate improvements and generate customized sustainability reports for internal and external presentation.
As an example, Cotati-Rohnert Park (CA) USD piloted SMART at Lawrence E. Jones Middle School last August. The sustainability assessment showed that the school was doing extremely well in areas like sustainable and healthy eating practices such as local food sourcing but the program uncovered significant areas for improvement in areas like energy efficiency and waste management.