Water

The three R's are critical to our catering operations. Our filtered water stations take ordinary New York City tap water and pass it through a triple-filtration process that produces high-quality drinking water. In addition, our commitment to linen-less tables saves water as linens do not have to be washed after each event.

“Not only are we helping to reduce the University’s dependence on plastic bottles, we are reducing carbon emissions because we have minimized our need for truck deliveries."

David Martin—General Manager, Faculty House

While sustainability is clearly a key objective, our business managers have discovered that the water filtration system offers many benefits besides reducing Columbia’s carbon footprint. The system dispenses high volumes of chilled water, relieving the pressure on refrigerated storage, as well as the cost and logistics involved in disposing of vast amounts of plastic waste associated with pre-bottled waters. We have reduced our annual order for pre-bottled waters by approximately 35,000 plastic bottles since implementing the system.

Linen-less tables were introduced at Faculty House in 2018, and the associated environmental impact of laundering and delivering linen lowered water usage by 18.6% in first year.