SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS!

Blog Post #9

            Super cool week of discussion about local action plans that we can actually do on college campuses. For whoever is reading this, I highly encourage you all to take steps in information your own schools to develop sustainable practices. My hope is that this influence will spread eventually to most if not all the college campuses around the world in time.

            In class we had the pleasure of discussing the ways in which our schools of CSB and SJU contribute to sustainable development. Even though we are joint campuses there are many differences among them including: leader, technology, staffing, and campus involvement. Despite these differences, combined our school has been taking steps in the right direction towards sustainable development. One way is our technology. We have propaine buses, a solar field, leed certified buildings, and other sustainable developments contributing to our divesting goals.

 Of course these technologies help significantly but they can’t take effect until administrators and students take action and spread awareness, which is another step our campuses have taken. We do different events held by the sustainability offices as well as promote campus recycling and composting mainly at CSB. With that said, we still have a lot of work to do in that area. In fact, the SJU campus doesn’t do composting at all, let alone much of any recycling. I don’t think there is a single thing sold besides fresh fruit that is sold at sexton that’s not wrapped in plastic or paper. I looked into this issue and talked with employees at sexton to discover something even more upsetting. The recycling piles usually end up in the trash at the end of the day despite separation! That’s awful! We could learn something from saint bens McLynn’s dining services that provide images on what to recycle and what to throw away. They actually recycle the items as well as inform customers what can actually go in there (sorry pizza boxes!).

One final way we take steps toward sustainability is the initiative agreements we take. I can’t remember which agreement we have, but it is our goal to become carbon neutral by 2035! We’re on the right track but has a lot of work to do, especially at SJU. The largest problem is the energy for electricity and heating. This may be daunting, but I think investing now will pay off in the future. A good idea I thought about would be working with the City of Collegeville and Saint Joseph. A collaborated effort may help with funding as well as technological resources, not to mention will lead to more outreach and sustainable development outside of campus (a stradegy suggested in the Cool Campus! A How-to Guide for College and University Climate Action Planning). Hopefully, we can continue developing these ideas and putting them into action as the years slowly lead up to 2035.

Other strategies for your campus can be found in the Cool Campus! A How-to Guide for College and University Climate Action Planning article, which I highly recommend reading!

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