Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Thanks to the 'green' menus served by Milano Ristorazione, a 42,89% decrease in CO2e emissions was recorded from 2015 to 2021 

Milan, February 13 2023 - Sustainable menus in schools to reduce environmental impact and spread good practices for nutrition that is good for the environment and health. The Municipality of Milan, together with Milano Ristorazione, is also joining the Green Food Week this year, an initiative promoted by Food Insider which takes place within the week of M'illumino di meno on the Caterpillar program on Rai Radio2. In addition to promoting the awareness campaign on the environmental impact of food choices in schools throughout the week, on Thursday 16 February, National Energy Saving and Sustainable Lifestyles Day, a menu will be offered in all school canteens in the city. without meat and with products that are as organic and seasonal as possible.  

“We support this initiative because it fully reflects the line we follow with the promotion of Food Policy actions in synergy with Milano Ristorazione - underlines the Deputy Mayor with responsibility for Food Policy Anna Scavuzzo -. We have been active for some time in various international projects that reward the reduction of meat in school canteen menus, favoring seasonal products with lower environmental impact and organic products. A choice for the health of the little ones and also sustainable from an environmental point of view: with EXPO2015 we started these actions implemented on a large scale and the results are already excellent today. In the first five years we managed to reduce CO20 emissions from canteen menus by 2% and the 2021 figure reached 42%: this significant increase confirms that the choices in the menus were more than valid". 

Since 2015, the Municipality of Milan and Milano Ristorazione have, in fact, been monitoring the environmental impact of school lunch food purchases through a partnership with the World Resource Institute (WRI) through the Cool food pledge project, a program which involves the measurement of environmental impacts and climate of the menus served by the participating institutions, be they school canteen services or collective catering in general. Those who join the Cool food pledge undertake to reduce CO25e emissions by 2% (equivalent) by 2030, starting from a baseline measurement of 2015.  

Among the participating bodies, the Municipality of Milan has already largely achieved and exceeded the objective: in 2019, by monitoring the environmental impact on an annual basis starting from 2015, the objective of a 20,5% cut in CO2e emissions, reducing in absolute terms approximately 2019 TonCo15.000e in 2 compared to 2015 data. This trend was also confirmed by the analysis carried out by the WRI on 2021, in which a 42,89% decrease in CO2e emissions was recorded between 2015 and 2021. Emissions for each kcal decreased by 28,38% to 5,38 KgCO2e per 1000 Kcal, for the same reference period.   

In the analyzed sample, Milan was confirmed as the most sustainable canteen, having in fact managed to reduce environmental impacts more in 5 years than the other members in Europe and also among all the international participants, with only 5,92 kgCO2e for every 1.000 kcal cooked, against a European average of 10 kgCO2e and an international average of around 25 kgCO2e.  

The result was achieved by increasing tubers (+20%), legumes (+18%), turkey (+11%) among the recipe ingredients and reducing beef (-62%), pork (-71%). ).   

Furthermore, a progressive increase in organic purchases has been introduced: examples today include eggs, pasta, bread (one week a month), croutons with wholemeal flour, corn flour for polenta, fruit (such as, in the winter menus, oranges, clementines, apples, pears, grapes, fair trade bananas), vegetables (including carrots, fennel, lettuce and pumpkin), tomato pulp, oil, milk, yogurt, cheeses and many other products. 

“In a still recent past, Milano Ristorazione defined its mission with a few effective words: to offer our community of Milanese students a healthy, good, educational and fair meal. A few years ago we also added the adjective 'sustainable'. - explains the President of Milano Ristorazione, Bernardo Notarangelo -. We did it because Milan was among the first Italian Municipalities to introduce the public school lunch service, way back in 1900, and as a pillar of the Municipality's Food Policy we want to be among the first also in concrete attention to environmental issues ”. 

Attention to correct nutrition and education to respect the environment through healthy and conscious choices promoted by the Food Policy of the Municipality of Milan are also achieved thanks to the collaboration with the Cariplo Foundation.  

“Since 2015, the Cariplo Foundation and the Municipality of Milan have created the city's Food Policy to offer healthy and sustainable nutrition to all children, reaching them primarily through school canteens - underlines Giovanni Fosti, President of the Cariplo Foundation -. With Food Policy we intend to promote access to a healthier lifestyle for everyone, adults and children, because this has very important impacts on people's lives, their health and the surrounding environment".