Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham measures and manages campus food waste as part of its sustainability commitment towards SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). The university has introduced systematic auditing and scientific waste‑management processes to quantify, recycle, and minimize food waste generated from all dining facilities across its campuses.
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham initiated comprehensive food waste measurement, monitoring, and mitigation across its dining facilities in 2024, advancing progress on SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action) goals. The attached full report provides detailed methodologies, quantitative findings (over 8,000 kg/month campus food waste tracked and reduced), and practical interventions implemented at Amritapuri campus.
This initiative established a zero-waste baseline and directly supports Amrita’s internal and UN Sustainable Development Goals requirements for traceable, science-based food waste auditing.
Under the Live‑in‑Labs® experiential framework, students and faculty in 2024 conducted a campus food‑waste monitoring and segregation study across hostels and canteens. Waste collected from dining areas was weighed daily, categorized into edible leftovers, plate waste, and kitchen scrap, and recorded for reduction benchmarking. The initiative established a digital data‑log linking waste weight with meal served counts to calculate average per‑capita waste.
In July 2024, Amrita hosted the International Workshop on Waste to Wealth, introducing methodologies for quantifying institutional organic waste and converting it into value‑added compost and biogas. Participants included university sustainability officers who shared models for food‑waste tracking and resource recovery from dining facilities.
Amrita’s 2024 policy paper titled “Sustainable Development Goal 12 and its Synergies with Other SDGs” provides a framework for consumption‑based accounting (CBA), recommending the inclusion of food‑waste quantification metrics within institutional sustainability audits. The report guided the integration of carbon and organic‑waste data into Amrita’s internal Green Audit procedures.
Amrita’s Chennai Campus received recognition in 2025 for adopting IoT‑based measurement tools and composting units that track organic food waste quantities and conversion efficiency. Daily waste metrics from the dining hall are automatically uploaded into a sustainability dashboard, enabling data‑driven reductions in waste‑to‑plate ratios.
In line with its Sustainable Campus Policy, Amrita integrated grease traps in all kitchens to prevent oil contamination while diverting decomposable food residues toward on‑site composting. Refuse mass and compost yield are recorded every week as part of Amrita’s waste‑recycling audit, ensuring traceable measurement from dining source to reuse.
Through these 2024 initiatives, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham established a data‑backed system to measure, record, and reduce food waste across its campuses—transforming leftover food into recoverable resources while advancing responsible consumption and climate sustainability practices.