CLIKIS – Climate friendly Kitchen in Schools

Although agriculture accounts for around 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions and an even greater proportion of emissions originates from land use changes (mostly from forest to agriculture), the topic of “food” is still relatively new in Poland’s climate protection policy. The pilot project, which was successful in Germany, supported the introduction of this topic in Poland – and it seemed promising for two reasons: On the one hand, a discussion about higher quality for school meals (so far for health and ecology reasons, but not for reasons of climate protection) had already begun in Poland and on the other, the organisational form of school catering is very similar in Poland and Germany, since both countries have caterers, leaseholders and schools which cook meals independently.

The project transferred the results of the German predecessor project KEEKS (Climate and Energy-Efficient Meals in Schools) to Polish conditions and eating habits. To achieve this, CLIKIS adapted educational materials and evaluated typical meals and ingredients according to their climatic impact in CO2 equivalents.

CLIKIS makes school kitchens more climate-friendly. Photo: pixabay.com

The main method of transferring the adapted project to Poland was through “Train-the-Trainer” seminars. German and Polish project partners also carried out projects in Polish schools and school kitchens.
Training courses taught the implementing partner PNEC, Polish training personnel and kitchen management how to apply the project methods and principles. The training highlighted the relationship between climate change and nutrition and provided useful information on energy-saving school kitchen operations.

The training courses addressed three specific areas of activity: the variation of ingredients, kitchen technology and user behavior as well as the organisational measures.

• Transfer of climate-friendly school catering to Poland: The project successfully transferred the German concept of climate-friendly school catering to the Polish context. To this end, train-the-trainer seminars were adapted and developed to enable the KEEKS methodology – low-carbon menu planning and sustainable procurement – to be applied in Polish school kitchens. 
• A total of six trainers were trained in two ToT sessions and ten chefs were trained, including five from pilot schools that cooperated directly with the project. An adapted handbook, training materials and presentations were created and disseminated and now form a practical basis for climate-friendly catering in schools and daycare centres in Poland. 
• Network development and professional dialogue for climate-friendly school kitchens: A final conference with 50 participants from science, administration, schools, children’s nurseries, school kitchens, NGOs, the National Institute of Food and Nutrition and the city of Krakow strengthened the emerging network of climate-friendly school kitchens. The conference brought together representatives from research and practice, made the topic of "climate action in school catering" visible and promoted professional exchange so that climate-friendly concepts can be implemented more widely in the future.