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Sustainability

Georgia Tech

Eliminates Receipts

ining Services at the Georgia Institute of Technology
(Georgia Tech) in Atlanta recently made a simple change
Dthat will potentially save hundreds of trees — and some
green. It has eliminated receipts at its 15 dining locations.
The idea for the receipt elimination came from two students,
Zoe Holderness and Emma Weinberg. The two frequently dined
at Georgia Tech (GT) Dining locations, operated by Sodexo,
and realized the opportunity to substantially decrease paper
waste by getting rid of receipts.
After coming up with the idea, they contacted
the necessary departments to strategize a
plan and implement it. They worked with
Campus Services and Malte Weiland,
the school’s sustainability project
manager, to recently launch the
initiative.
In 2016, the 15 campus
dining locations eliminating
receipts had 2,474,839 trans-
actions, each producing a re-
ceipt. “If applying data from
a Huffington Post article that initiatives as well. They are
‘55,000 receipts spare one currently studying abroad,
tree,’ then GT Dining Ser- but when they return, they
vices will save roughly 45 will be working on engage-
trees annually by eliminating ment products where they
receipts,” according to Dining will help share that impact
Services. as well.”
“This effort contributes to Along with the sustain-
Georgia Tech’s sustainability ability initiatives of eliminating
mission to ‘preserve resources, receipts, there is a cost benefit.
reduce our environmental impact, “From our standpoint, it is a low-
and inspire action toward sustainable hanging fruit,” said Weiland. “It is a
outcomes,’” said Staci Flores, resident savings we can easily achieve. There is
district manager with Sodexo. no real cost to implement. The real benefit, in
The Sequoia point-of-sale system will no longer addition to the cost savings, is the cultural one of get-
automatically print receipts at these 15 locations. Instead, ting the students and the GT community to think about their
cashiers will ask customers if they would like a printed copy. choices. They are going to confront the choice of not taking
Customers can also view transactions on their BuzzCard ac- the receipt. Our biggest benefit will be from that impact on
counts when paying with a meal plan, dining points or BuzzCard the consciousness of waste generation in the community.”
funds. “The majority of people are not asking for a receipt,” The launch has been well received. “It has been very posi-
she said. “There have been the occasional, usually because tive,” said Flores. “People have been declining the printed
they have to do an expense report. It is typically visitors and receipts. We are meeting the expectations of our GT com-
not the students who ask for them.” munity by opting to preserve our natural resources.”
The launch of the initiative coincided with a marketing Weiland said that the school has always encouraged ideas
campaign to help introduce it and encourage participation. “Our from students when it comes to improving campus life. “We
marketing team launched a campus-wide campaign,” said Flores. are all very accessible to hear from students, for a class project
“They have signage. There has also been engagement activity, or a student who has an idea about sustainability,” he said.
such as tabling during Earth Day. We will give them updates “It is really a great way for us to gain ideas, because they are
regarding impact on our website and social media. Students usually looking at things from a different lens than we are.”
Zoe and Emma have been very instrumental at conducting the —OCH

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