Healthy Beverage Initiative
Our UBC community members work and learn within a demanding, high-performance academic environment. Having access to nourishing food and beverages, and the necessary information to make healthy choices, helps them thrive. A Healthy Beverage Initiative is an important step towards changing our on-campus environment to better support their wellbeing.
The Healthy Beverage Initiative is a collaboration between faculty, staff, student, and vendor stakeholders, to create a campus environment where it's easier to make healthier choices. HBI supports the UBC Wellbeing Strategic Framework target to "reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages by 50% by 2025". Through community engagement, the Food and Nutrition Committee identified three actions to support this target:
Action 1: Encourage tap water consumption
Action 2: Promote healthier beverages choices in our community
Action 3: Modify our environment to support healthier beverage consumption
Background: Why a Healthy Beverage Initiative?
- What are sugar-sweetened beverages?
- The not-so-sweet stats on sugar-sweetened beverages
- Getting started with HBI
Action 1: Encourage tap water consumption
Explore and implement opportunities to adapt our environment to increase safe drinking water consumption.
Projects and Initiatives
- SEEDS sustainability projects
Action 2: Promote healthier beverage choices within our community
Create a campaign to encourage our community members to make healthier, more nutritious beverage choices, and promote drinking water.
Projects and Initiatives
- UBC Drinks Tap Water Campaign
- SEEDS Sustainability Projects
Action 3: Modify our environment to support healthier beverage consumption.
Food service providers commit to making meaningful changes to the beverage environment to encourage healthier beverage choices.
- Negotiating pouring rights contracts
- Modifying dining hall offerings
- Vending at UBC