Sustainability on campus at HMSM
"Within the hotel school, we constantly try to improve our sustainability and make both employees and students aware of the importance of being sustainable."
Our HMSM Sustainable Working group carries out different projects and continues to contribute improvements within the school. In addition to the presence of sustainability in the curriculum, the working group addresses practical issues related to sustainability in everyday life at school, on campus and beyond. During the last couple years we have been taking serious steps with the aim to not only become a waste free campus but also to create awareness and increase knowledge among our students and employees.
HMSM Grow Garden
On June 8th , we had the official opening of the HMSM GROW Garden, a small-scale organic herb and vegetable garden in the courtyard of the hotel school. The garden is the newest addition to our campus, and the newest initiative of HMSM towards becoming more sustainable!
16 square meters dedicated to organic herbs and vegetables. In garden beds built from reclaimed wood and filled with organic soil, the members of the GROW Gardening Committee grow herbs and vegetables. The aim is to not just enjoy these in dishes, but to actively integrate these produce within gastronomic education and food education-based research. The idea behind this pilot is to start small, with the vision to expand to the HMSM grounds in the near future, to be able to apply the permaculture approach and support our F&B outlets with fresh organic produce in a sustainable way!
Waste free campus
As the first programme at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences we discontinued the use of disposable cups on campus. We did this by introducing the ‘Bring Your Own Cup’ policy. In May 2023, we stopped the distribution of paper and plastic single use cups for coffee, tea and water, and instead encourage our students and staff to use their own reusable cup or mug. We also offer the option to buy the Stojo Cup, a reusable and collapsible silicone cup suitable for cold and hot drinks. By making the switch from single-use to reusable, we save more than 115,000 disposable cups per year!
In addition to no longer distributing single-use cups, we also aim tTo reduce waste, recycle properly and simultaneously support a good cause, by limiting our beverages sold to those that come in PET bottles and placing a PET-Man bin in our student restaurant REFRESH. Since Pet-Plastic bottles and cans now include a deposit, students and staff can throw away their bottles and cans here instead of returning them to the supermarket. All the deposit collected in this special bin is donated to a good cause. The cause was jointly selected by students and employees of the hotel school: The Plastic Soup Foundation. This way, we are not just limiting the plastic waste internal to our school, but also contribute to external efforts to reduce plastic pollution.
Sustainable initiatives
Within the hotel school, we constantly try to improve our sustainability and make both employees and students aware of the importance of being sustainable. In addition to the above initiatives, we have special bins to recycle waste within the streams of plastic, paper, organic and residual, there is a bee hotel next to the Teaching Hotel and we always look for new ways to make our campus more waste free. The next step is to expand the Grow Garden to the HMSM grounds in the near future, to be able to apply the permaculture approach and support our F&B outlets with fresh organic produce in a sustainable way!
Curious what our ambition is? Also check our sustainability page where we explain more about our vision on sustainability in both the curriculum and on our campus.
