RePlate: A User-Driven Solution for Empowering Sustainable Food Consumption in University Dining

RePlate is the first food reviews app to foreground sustainability in institutional dining services, enabling university students to make carbon-conscious food choices and minimize food waste while tracking sustainability. An estimated 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is produced annually by food waste disposal in the United States. University dining halls are a high contributor due to their production and distribution for large student populations. Consulting with representatives at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), we identified the lack of student engagement and manual data collection as pain points in the current food waste stream. Research on food waste interventions, a user survey with 24 respondents, and three in-depth user interviews provided insights into how food reviews and quantitative tracking could minimize food waste on campus. RePlate has the potential to be scalable to other dining scenarios in promoting individual sustainability and utilizing aggregated data for menu development.