In this episode we talk about the Sprecometro Challenge at the United World College of the Adriatic, the international college that hosts students from 84 countries. A project against food waste that, through the Sprecometro app, involves young people in measuring food surpluses, raises everyday awareness and turns choices at the table into a concrete act of solidarity. An innovative, participatory way to make everyone’s impact visible and build a culture of responsible consumption.
Serena Zucchet: It’s always really lovely to be here at the United World College of the Adriatic.
Giulia Postal: Welcome back! Let’s make ourselves comfortable.
Serena Zucchet: Yes, thank you for joining our Sprecometro Challenge project.
Every time I come here I’m always very happy. What I like most is that, even though there are so many young people from all over the world, with different backgrounds, different cultures and different personalities, they all share the desire to make a difference and to have a positive impact.
Giulia Postal: I’d say you’ve summed up the United World College of the Adriatic very well.
This year we have 183 students from 84 different countries, so it’s very international.
For us, education is a force that brings peoples and cultures together for peace and sustainability. Social and environmental issues are particularly important to them and, above all, they really want to bring about change.
Sprecometro is an app designed for school canteens. How did you think of adapting it to our context?
Serena Zucchet: The real difference lies precisely in adding the Challenge element, the competition, to make the activity and the measurement more dynamic and perhaps a bit more engaging too.
You know the students very well, you talk to them every day, you listen to them every day, so I wanted to ask you how you think a project like this will affect their habits, but also the college in general.
Giulia Postal: I expect the students to really take the lead on this initiative, to be the true drivers of change, encouraging not only their peers but all the adults as well. But in practice, Serena, how will this Sprecometro Challenge work?
Serena Zucchet: Well, it’s very simple to use. In the first phase of the project, a college contact person, supported by a group of students, will measure food waste in the canteen together for one week. So there will be a visual assessment of the waste left on the trays, the data will be entered into the app, and the app will then automatically process the data in real time and give a result at the end of the week.
In the second phase of the project, the seven residences will compete against each other because, as you said earlier, it’s important to involve the students directly. At the end of this weekly measurement there will also be an award ceremony. The prize will be a symbolic one: a food donation to a local charity chosen by the students and the college. And to my mind this is another very strong point of the project, namely creating a positive impact not only within the college community but outside it as well.
But let’s talk about the students for a moment. Do you see them excited about this project? Are they fired up?
Giulia Postal: The students are really excited, they can’t wait to get started, and we talked at length about how to set up a project like this in a setting with teenagers. We want it to be clear that we are monitoring food waste strictly within a sustainability framework, so I don’t want anyone to feel judged or told off. They’re simply very curious, and the staff are very curious too. We want to get started, we want to see how it goes and, yes, we’re ready.
Serena Zucchet: Looking back to the beginning of the journey, when do you think the spark for this project was lit?
Giulia Postal: For me the spark came when I discovered that the Camst group has an entire department dedicated to sustainability, and above all I was very pleased to learn that there is another organisation that, like the United World College of the Adriatic, cares about sustainability both from an educational and awareness-raising point of view and in terms of offering solutions that help turn everyday life into concrete actions.
