AG Mensa, a working group of the TU Environmental Initiative (tuuwi for short), unites students of the TU Dresden and other universities in Dresden, Zittau and Görlitz. About two years ago, it was (re)founded to actively promote climate-friendly(r) nutrition at the universities of the Studierendenwerk Dresden. As a central part of the university - a place where the future is being shaped - university catering has a certain role model function. Through stronger commitment to ecological sustainability in canteen operations, it can be shown that social responsibility is taken on in a local, global and temporal context.

The deforestation of the rainforest, the extinction of species, the overfertilization of soils, water scarcity, environmental pollution and exploitative structures manifested by giant corporations: these are all problems that can be caused, but also solved, by the way we eat and handle food. Therefore, in November 2019, activists of the AG Mensa formulated seven demands to the Studierendenwerk, which are at the same time the working basis and goals of the working group. At the beginning of 2020, these became part of the climate policy list of demands, which has since been adopted by the StuRa of the TU Dresden and later also by the highest student representation in Saxony, the Conference of Saxon Student Bodies. This means that the cafeteria demands for all Saxon universities and colleges are legitimized by the students. A central demand is that at least one vegan dish be offered every day in every refectory. Factory farming and the associated feed production form a significant part of the greenhouse gas emissions (caused by food), which is why vegan dishes in most cases have a better CO2 balance than those with animal products.

However, a diverse selection of "omnivorous" dishes continues to be offered daily at the Studierendenwerk universities. The AG Mensa is committed to creating a diverse and attractive  range of plant-based food in the future. Only by actively promoting climate-friendly measures can a sustainable cafeteria operation be created. This could be achieved, for example, by introducing a "climate nice price". So far, the "Nice Price" reduces the "true price" of a meal by €0.15 every day and in every cafeteria, irrespective of the CO₂ balance and the proportion of animal products.  Other key goals are to reduce food waste, increase the selection of organic and Fairtrade products, and pay more attention to seasonal and regional products.

In order to create more transparency, the AG-Mensa project group "Mensa Statistics" is working on statistics on the development of supply and demand of the different eating styles.

The "CO₂ Project" group deals with the automatic calculation and presentation of the CO₂ equivalents (CO₂eq) of the meals offered. The data basis for this is provided by the Swiss company Eaternity. This would provide consumers with a powerful tool to make climate-conscious decisions more easily. For example, 1 kg of butter causes significantly more CO₂eq than 1 kg of beef.

Two new project groups are dealing with the topic of nudging and the implementation of a joint cafeteria campaign with the Studierendenwerk. In regular meetings with representatives of the Studierendenwerk, the implementation of the demands and other current problems, events and ideas are discussed. At this point, we would like to thank the Studierendenwerk for the good cooperation. So far, some successes have been achieved on the initiative of the Mensa working group, for example the offer of plant drinks and vegan cakes in the cafeterias. The offer of at least one vegan dish per day in each cafeteria was also decided. However, the implementation is still pending, certainly also due to the current difficult Corona-situation.

Through numerous meetings, we know that the Studierendenwerk is already striving for more ecological sustainability in many places. In purchasing, attention is paid to regionality and seasonality, organic waste is recycled for energy, packaging waste is avoided, and food waste is reduced through optimized kitchen processes and methods of recycling and reuse. Nonetheless, there is still significant potential for improvement, particularly in the expansion of the plant-based offering and transparency, which must be exploited in the future. Only in this way can the vision of holistic climate-friendly university catering be realized.

The tuuwi blog and social media accounts feature regular posts on the current status of the projects, as well as recipes and information on climate-conscious nutrition.