New Berkeley Haas SHARE program expands food access for students, sets new standard for campus zero waste

A top business school may seem like an unconventional place to find food insecurity. 

But according to a recent Berkeley Haas Undergraduate Program survey, one in five Berkeley Haas undergraduate students reported that they don’t have enough food to meet their basic needs. A new Berkeley Haas program, SHARE@Haas, plans to help reduce those numbers by redistributing excess food across campus to whoever at Haas needs it—students, staff, or faculty.

The pilot program is a partnership between the Haas Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice & Belonging; the Center for Responsible Business; and the Office of Sustainability and Climate Change, among other campus organizations. The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) and other grants helped the group establish a “SHARE space”—a room in Cheit Hall, where students selected to be program fellows will ferry excess food from events across the Haas campus. 

The space, expected to open next month, houses a commercial refrigerator for food storage and will be equipped with a Wonderfil refill station. The station will be stocked with basics like detergent, shampoo, and other staple items that students may need that they can access with empty bottles.

SHARE (Sustainable, Holistic, Accessible, Recoverable, and Equitable)@Haas aligns with Berkeley Haas zero waste goals, which are grounded in three pillars: to reduce waste, to divert as much waste as possible from landfills through composting and recycling, and to recover as much as possible that’s not diverted. “We recover as the last pillar,” said Amy Chan, Chief Sustainability Officer at Haas. “It’s the last strategy, but it’s an important and essential one, and one that often people forget about.”

Zero waste commitment

SHARE@Haas evolved from efforts to recover as much excess food as possible from campus events. Over the past three years, a food recovery program launched by former MBA student Melissa Little donated more than 7,000 pounds of excess food to the Dorothy Day House, a nonprofit that serves the Berkeley community. Last year, the Office of Sustainability and Climate Change began a pilot program that recovered over 2,000 pounds of food from events that went to the undergraduate student population. 

“Quality food is so critical to academic and athletic performance and overall quality of life—and some of our students meeting their tuition expenses don’t have enough money left over for the basics,” said Katrina Koski, director of Inclusion and Belonging at Berkeley Haas. “If we can help address this problem and prevent food waste at the same time it’s a win-win for all.”

That program’s success led the team to launch SHARE@Haas, which aligns with Haas’ role as a campus leader in zero waste since 2018, when Chou Hall earned platinum TRUE Zero Waste certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. As part of the certification, Haas diverts 90% of its materials from landfill.  

“Our commitment to sustainability and zero waste is one of the main drivers for launching the SHARE@Haas program,” said Danner Doud-Martin, director of Haas Campus Sustainability.  “The best part is that by following our sustainability values, we are meeting a need in our community that allows for students and staff to thrive.”

A new fellowship

Another aspect of SHARE@Haas is a new yearlong paid undergraduate fellowship—in partnership with the Centers for Educational Equity & Excellence (CE3)—that seeks to expand on-campus work and professional development pathways for students interested in sustainability and accessible food systems. The three fellows in the inaugural cohort, who are studying political science, philosophy and law, and art, will have the opportunity to audit an MBA class.

SHARE fellows, called SHAREbears, will recover food after Haas events, package it in reusable containers, and store it in the SHARE space. SHARE@Haas is working with FoodWare to help manage the container checkout system. QR codes on containers will provide data on how many participants are checking out food.

“This is an exciting opportunity to better visualize, destigmatize, and come together around the real-time need impacting our community,” Koski said. “Our hope is that anonymized SHARE data can help inform student affairs teams across the Haas degree programs as they continue to iterate student support strategies and address equity gaps.”

For example, using the data to identify peak times throughout a given semester could allow the team to connect students on the fly to more robust campus resources like the Basic Needs Center.

Learning about food systems

Missy Martin, MBA 26, and graduate student lead for the SHARE program, is organizing monthly coffee chats for the fellows with leaders like Chief Sustainability Officer Amy Chan. She will also coordinate site visits to nonprofits and businesses with possibilities such as Planting Justice, Casa Sanchez Foods, and Chez Panisse.

“We’re going to craft one site visit per semester so the fellows can actually see food systems play out in real life and ask questions about sustainability and equity,” says Martin, who is an MBA fellow with the Haas Center for Responsible Business. “Then we’ll see if we can bring back some of those learnings to the SHARE space.”

Martin began college in Nashville at a school she considered to be food insecure at the time, meaning students didn’t have access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. As a result, she decided to transfer to Berkeley and dove deep into food systems work. After graduation, she worked for three different early-stage startups before returning to Berkeley to pursue her MBA.

“I am always thinking and asking, ‘What are innovative ways to solve problems?’” Martin said. “I love working in the startup space, and I came to business school to gain foundational business skills that will translate back to the startup and food systems spaces.”

Martin, currently an intern at Precursor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in San Francisco that has invested in food-focused companies, like Dispatch Goods, a reusable packaging solution for food service and meal delivery, and Bobbie Baby, an organic infant formula company, says the food services mission will always be part of her life. 

Koski said it’s critical to get student leaders and staff into the habit of thinking about circular economies, basic needs support, and food access when they’re in positions that involve resource allocation and logistics, like planning events.  

“This approach is going to serve our students wherever they go next, regardless of their industry, their role in decision-making, or the scale of operation,” she said.

To opt in to the SHARE@Haas program, have extra food picked up from a campus event, or help support the program, please visit the SHARE@Haas website.