SAN FRANCISCO – The Pac-12 today announced that the Conference’s sustainability platform, Pac-12 Team Green, has extended its efforts with Copia through the 2019-20 academic season, ensuring all remaining Conference championships in 2020 will be zero-food-waste events. In addition, the extension has already helped the 2019 Pac-12 Football Championship Game recover over 600 lbs. of food from Levi’s® Stadium and will also ensure that the upcoming 2020 Pac-12 Sustainability Conference at the University of Utah will be a zero-food-waste event. Copia was first announced as an official member of Pac-12 Team Green in November 2018.

 

Copia, a technology company, helps businesses and event organizers prevent food waste and donate excess food to nearby nonprofit organizations. Copia’s platform works in real-time to connect surplus food to those who need it most, all while helping businesses and event organizers understand and reduce their food waste with AI-driven predictive analytics.

 

 

For the 2019 football title game this past December, Copia’s efforts with Pac-12 Team Green delivered over 600 lbs. and over 500 meals to local organizations in the Santa Clara County area. Included in those organizations were LifeMoves, which provides supportive services for homeless families and individuals and HomeFIrst, which works to provide services, shelter and house opportunities to homeless and those at risk of homelessness.

 

As part of the extension, the Pac-12 will continue to utilize Copia’s technology to ensure no edible food goes to waste at any Pac-12 hosted events.  With over a dozen championship events remaining this season across the Conference’s footprint, Copia will tap into a pool of more than 500,000 nationwide drivers to deliver food donations to nonprofits within its network of veteran agencies, homeless shelters, senior care facilities and after-school programs.

 

The Pac-12’s continued work with Copia is part of the Conference’s larger sustainability efforts with Pac-12 Team Green, a first-of-its kind sustainability platform in collegiate athletics that aims to promote all of the greening efforts taking place on and around Pac-12 campuses. More information on Pac-12 Team Green is available at Pac-12.com/TeamGreen.

 

Every day in America, we waste 3 times more food than there are hungry mouths to feed. The truth is: hunger is not a scarcity problem, it’s a logistics problem, and Copia is out to solve it. Copia’s technology platform helps businesses track and manage food waste; donate edible excess food to those in need; and reap significant financial benefits from reducing waste and feeding the community. This year, Copia will feed more than 3 million people with food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Copia is recognized as one of the top 8 startups coming out of Y Combinator. Copia’s founder and CEO, Komal Ahmad, was recently awarded Forbes 30 Under 30, the Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award, and was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.” To learn more about how your business can reduce food waste and feed the community, visit gocopia.com. 

 

The Conference has a tradition as the “Conference of Champions,” leading the nation in NCAA Championships in 53 of the last 59 years, with 529 NCAA team titles overall. The Conference comprises 12 leading U.S. universities - the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Colorado, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the University of Utah, the University of Washington and Washington State University. For more information on the Conference’s programs, member institutions, and Commissioner Larry Scott, go to Pac-12.com/conference.​