The serving area in Colby College’s renovated dining hall (Colby Magazine photo by Mark Nakamura)

Waterville, Me. — Joe Klaus, the dining-services operations manager at Colby College, has a large garden at home and raises much of what his family eats. He’s a big believer in sustainability. So when he had the opportunity to oversee the $6.3-million renovation of the college’s Roberts Union dining hall — one of three major food facilities on the campus — he was eager both to see the work done sustainably and to end up with as sustainable an operation as possible.

Colby students said they wanted the dining hall to retain its classy feel. So Mr. Klaus — an employee of Sodexho USA, which runs the college’s food service — worked with the project’s designers to create what he refers to as a “butler’s kitchen” appearance. The white tile walls and heavy, furniturelike serving counters would be at home in a big English country house. Meanwhile, the wood used for paneling and trim is from renewable stocks, the carpet has recycled content, and the demolition necessary for the project was done in a way that made much of the unwanted material recyclable. Durability was another concern, Mr. Klaus says, adding that granite counters “will stand the test of time.”

Most commercial kitchen equipment is already energy-efficient, he says, since that keeps costs down for restaurants. But the renovation did bring other energy-saving features, like computer-controlled ventilation equipment that runs only when it’s needed, and dishwashers with sensors that turn the machines off when there are no dishes to be washed. And some of the college’s kitchen equipment was refurbished, rather than being discarded in favor of new purchases.

In the dining area, Mr. Klaus argued for putting durability ahead of appearance. Windsor chairs and wood-topped tables would look great, he agrees, but he says the chairs wouldn’t last a year and the tabletops would be wrecked in about the same amount of time. The college ended up buying sturdy wood chairs — Mr. Klaus calls them “utilitarian” — with brackets that can be tightened as necessary, and tables with laminate tops and hardwood borders. Mr. Klaus says current students should be able to sit at the same tables when they come back years from now for reunions.

Minimizing waste is one of Mr. Klaus’s top goals. He composts about 80 tons of food waste each year, but only about 10 percent of that is from food preparation — all the rest is food students take but don’t eat. To keep kitchen waste down, he emphasizes preparing food on demand. Macaroni and cheese, for instance, isn’t baked in big hotel pans but is mixed and then dished into ovenproof single-serving dishes that can be run through impingers — high-heat ovens with conveyors that heat food as students ask for it. Because food not served during a given meal hasn’t been cooked, it can be used later in the week instead of being consigned to the compost bin.

He also ordered heavier plates and smaller trays to help prevent students from taking lots of food on their first pass through the serving area and then throwing a lot of it out. Students can come back for all the seconds and thirds they want, he says. He just doesn’t want to see them throwing food away.

Unlike some other college dining operations that buy directly from local farmers, Mr. Klaus — who spends about $1-million a year on food purchases — says he prefers to work with his big commercial suppliers to encourage them to buy more of their food locally. He does this, he says, because he doesn’t want a menu change at the college to threaten an individual farmer’s livelihood, and he doesn’t want a farmer’s having had good weekend sales at a local farmer’s market to mean he can’t get tomatoes for Colby’s students.

Mr. Klaus says most of the changes he has made have been “cost neutral,” but his approach to food fits nicely with Colby’s efforts to buy only electricity produced with sustainable means and to build sustainable buildings — a new alumni center has received a LEED silver rating, and LEED paperwork for a new interdisciplinary-studies building is about to be submitted. Having grown up on a dairy farm, Mr. Klaus says he would prefer the sustainable approach in any case. “I believe in it,” he says. “I do it myself.”