EVALUATION AND PERCEPTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN FOOD SERVICES OF PAULISTAN CLUBS

Meal production involves processes that cause environmental impacts. Improving these factors is a challenge for managers who need to reconcile these aspects with clients' costs and needs. The objective of the study was to evaluate the environmental sustainability in food services and the nutritionist's perception in this regard. A check list was applied to obtain sustainability aspects and a questionnaire to evaluate the perception of the nutritionist, both with a score of up to 100%. The data were analyzed by mean and standard deviation. Student's t-test was used to analyze the difference between two means and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyze the difference among three or more means. The analyses of association between two quantitative variables were performed using the Pearson's correlation. All statistical tests considered a significance level of 5%. Of the total of restaurants (n=7), 71.4% (n = 5) had programs focused on environmental sustainability. Only one (14.3%) had a score of 77.4% on the sustainability check list, being classified as "good" and 85.7% (n = 6) presented a score of 50 to 74%, with a score of "acceptable ". Places with sustainability-focused programs had higher scores. A weak correlation was obtained when analyzing the association between the perception of sustainability and the check list score. It was possible to verify that most nutritionists have a high perception about sustainability, but observing the check list scores, it is noticed that few actions are taken in order to minimize environmental impact.