BCAIU

May 17, 2011

Contact
Roxanne Toronto Communications Officer, University Advancement
tel 604.742 9007 | roxanne@ecuad.ca

Vancouver, BC | Emily Carr University of Art + Design is pleased to announce that fourth year student Samantha Lefort is the recipient of a $12,500 Generation Green Award from the Vancouver Foundation to implement a foodsystems project that is changing Vancouver’s carbon footprint.

Created and co-piloted by Lefort, Local Choice is a program which rates and calculates food values, it provides a visual and measurable sustainability index. It is a way of assessing not only the carbon footprint of the foods we eat, but is an index that includes impactful practices, such as environmental and social factors. Using a points based system, the Local Choice program rates the inventory in the kitchen, based on a set of working definitions such as proximity, distance and Organic labeling. It assesses the information to provide a rating, identifying the most local choices. Once the most local choices have been identified, they visualize a lower carbon option on the menu.

Emily Carr Communication Design students Marcela Huerta and Jill Southern, both interested in sustainability, were added to Lefort’s team and she has enlisted their expertise to help her implement different aspects of the project. The team also includes Julien Thomas, SFU student and environmental designer.

“I am very excited about Samantha Lefort’s award. As a Critical and Cultural Practice Major at Emily Carr, she has demonstrated a range of skills which she has brought to her academic and studio classes,“ says Associate Professor Randy Lee Cutler, “It is a pleasure to see a student bring ethical and creative ideas to real world experiences.”

The Vancouver Foundation launched the special, one-time Generation Green Awards to provide cash awards of up to $12,500 for environmental projects created by young people aged 6 to 24.

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