91探花

Zero Hunger

Sustainable Development Goals: Progress Report | Reporting Year 2025–26

1. Introduction & Institutional Commitment

Sustainable Development Goal 2 calls for an end to hunger, for safe, nutritious and sufficient food for everyone all year round, and for sustainable food production systems that protect soil, water and ecosystems. A university does not grow the world's food, but it feeds a large community every day, it teaches and researches the systems behind food, and it can show what responsible food practice looks like.

JGU approaches the goal through the meals it serves, the way it treats its land and waste, and the research of its scholars. The campus is home to more than 16,000 students, and its dining operations follow a "Clean Campus Dining" framework: in 2025 refined flour was removed from dining operations, whole grain and gluten-free options rose to 65% of the menu, artificial additives and frying were dropped, and the average fibre content per meal rose by 35%. Food waste is composted in the campus Organic Waste Converter, and the compost goes back to campus horticulture in place of synthetic fertilisers. A dedicated vegetable garden is part of JGU's green infrastructure. Research by faculty and fellows covers smart irrigation, rice cultivation and nutrition, and five cross-listed electives, including one on sustainable food, water and energy governance, bring the subject into the classroom.

This report presents JGU's progress, key initiatives, and impact under SDG 2 across the following areas: access to safe and nutritious food, ending malnutrition, sustainable and resilient food production, and research and teaching on food systems.

2. Key Figures at a Glance

3. Research Progress

4. Policy & Governance

JGU's food practice is guided by its "Clean Campus Dining" framework and by the university's sustainability policies. Every campus event must follow the "No-MSG / No-Margarine" mandate. The Policy on Responsible Sourcing applies to food and catering suppliers and gives weight to fair wages, human rights and eco-certification, and the No Plastic Use Policy requires reusable crockery and plastic-free packaging in dining and at events.

Policy objectives:

• Serve safe, nutritious and varied food, with less refined flour, fewer additives and more whole grains, pulses and plant-based protein.
• Publish nutritional information in every dining space so that diners can make informed choices.
• Reduce food waste at source and return what remains to the soil as compost.
• Keep campus growth in harmony with the local ecosystem, including through a dedicated vegetable garden.

Oversight & responsibility:

The dining operations teams carry out the framework, with the Office of Sustainability tracking results, and the Procurement Office applies the sourcing rules to food suppliers. Progress is reported each year in the Sustainable Development Report.

5. Key Initiatives & Projects: Progress Against Targets

JGU's progress is reported against all eight UN SDG 2 targets. Where a target falls to governments or agricultural systems and lies outside a university's reach, this is stated plainly. Target wording follows the United Nations.

Target 2.1: By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.

Clean Campus Dining: JGU's campus is home to more than 16,000 students, and its dining operations follow the "Clean Campus Dining" framework. Wet and dry waste from dining halls is weighed after every meal, three times a day, and real-time dining-hall availability on the myJGU portal helps kitchens avoid overproduction. Every dining space displays nutritional charts that give real-time information on calories and other food data from the daily menu.

Target 2.2: By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.

In 2025 JGU made significant changes to what it serves. Refined flour (45% of grain volume at the baseline) was removed, whole grain and gluten-free options rose from 15% to 65% of menu share, artificial additives (MSG, margarine and colours) were dropped, and frying at events (30% of the event menu) was replaced by steaming and baking. Pulses, whole grains and plant-based proteins raised the average fibre content per meal by 35%. Twelve new plant-based recipes are introduced every month to cater to vegan, keto-friendly and allergen-free diets, and 100% of campus events followed the "No-MSG / No-Margarine" mandate.

Target 2.3: By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.

JGU's contribution: this target is addressed through research and not through a campus programme. Fellows of the Naveen Jindal Young Global Research Fellowship have published on smart irrigation and sensor networks in agriculture (99.82nd percentile worldwide), buffalo milk production and nutrition, and the health benefits of the curry tree's essential oils.

Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.

• Returning nutrients to the soil: 2,112 kg of compost a year from the Organic Waste Converter goes back into campus horticulture, replacing synthetic fertilisers and improving soil quality. The converter takes 6,396 kg of food waste a year, diverting 100% of it from landfill and avoiding 288 kg of methane.
• Water-conscious landscaping: 100% of landscape irrigation uses treated wastewater, and drought-resistant native species are planted.
• A vegetable garden: JGU maintains a dedicated vegetable garden as part of its green infrastructure, a living laboratory for stewardship of land and food.
• Research: a fellowship paper, "Navigating environmental challenges in rice cultivation for food purpose", addresses environmental challenges in rice cultivation, and the fellowship's work on aquaculture resilience through biofloc-forming bacteria adds to the science of resilient food production.

Target 2.5: By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed.

JGU's contribution: this target is not addressed through institutional action.

Target 2.a: Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries.

JGU's contribution: this target concerns governments and development finance. JGU supports agricultural research capacity through its research fellowship, which brings young scholars from more than 35 countries to JGU.

Target 2.b: Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round.

JGU's contribution: this target concerns governments and trade negotiations. It is not addressed through institutional action.

Target 2.c: Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.

JGU's contribution: this target concerns governments and markets. It is not addressed through institutional action.

6. Programmes, Research & Curriculum

• 5 electives mapped to SDG 2; spotlight: 'Sustainable Food, Water and Energy Governance'.
• Faculty are encouraged to bring food security into their teaching through the mapping of every course to the 17 SDGs and 169 targets each semester.
• Research themes: smart irrigation and agricultural sensing, rice cultivation, aquaculture resilience, dairy nutrition and the health benefits of plant extracts, through fellows of the Naveen Jindal Young Global Research Fellowship.
• Naveen Jindal Young Global Research Fellowship: 500+ applications from 35+ countries in 2026, with 150+ fellows selected.

7. Community, Partnerships & Outreach

• Fellows of the Naveen Jindal Young Global Research Fellowship from universities such as Eastern University, Sri Lanka, whose research covers agriculture and nutrition.
• Collection and composting of campus food waste, with compost used on campus.
• JGU's 600+ partnerships across 83+ countries, which carry its research on food and the environment to partners.

8. Future Commitments & Roadmap

JGU will continue its "Clean Campus Dining" framework, work towards a 30% reduction in dining waste, keep the dedicated vegetable garden and carry out regular biodiversity and environmental audits, so that campus growth stays in harmony with the local ecosystem. It will keep every campus dining space equipped with nutritional information and widen the plant-based and allergen-free choices it offers.

JGU's work on SDG 2 begins where a university can have the most direct effect: in its own kitchens and on its own soil. Cleaner and more nutritious menus on a campus of more than 16,000 students, food waste turned into compost, treated water used for irrigation and a vegetable garden show a campus that treats food as part of its responsibility to people and to land. Research by its fellows on irrigation, rice, dairy and aquaculture, and electives on food, water and energy governance, extend that responsibility into knowledge. With these foundations, JGU is well placed to keep strengthening its contribution to a world without hunger.