Vail Resorts Food Waste Project
Vail Resorts understands the need for private businesses to lead the way in sustainability and best environmental practices. To step up to this challenge, Vail Resorts released its comprehensive sustainability commitment in June 2017, titled “Epic Promise for a Zero Footprint.” Among these goals, the company has committed to diverting 100% of its operational food waste away from landfills. Food waste is a significant hurdle in Vail Resorts’ operations both on and off the mountain. Specifically, Vail’s EPIC zero waste goals pose a challenge in waste diversion and composting implementation. Achieving this goal requires extensive research, analyses, and critical thinking of the problems and solutions to diverting food from the waste stream. This project will fill the capacity gap within Vail Resorts’ operations to tackle the food waste EPIC goal. A written strategic plan will provide the necessary guidelines to implement a comprehensive food waste diversion pilot plan based off site visits to Breckenridge and Vail. The strategic plan can then be adapted to the company’s other resorts.