Now that the semester is coming to an end, here’s a summary of everything that the Environmental Sustainability Committee has done as well as a little sneak peek of what is to come:
Our committee went to work very early in the year to advertise the application process for the Green Initiative Funding Tomorrow (GIFT) Grant Allocation Committee. GIFT was designed to empower students to uphold our University’s commitment to operating in an environmentally sustainable manner, and Jason Truwitt, the committee’s new chair, has undertaken that mission since the early days of the semester. His committee is already working hard to get thousands of dollars in the hands of students with initiatives that aim to make UVa more eco-friendly.
While still on the subject of our collaboration with other committees, we’d like to take a second to congratulate all of those who were recently selected as research aids to the Environmental Impact Subcommittee of the Presidential Committee on Sustainability. They will be busy over the next several months helping the Subcommittee find effective means of mitigating our university’s negative environmental impacts.
Our own committee members have also been working hard on their own environmental initiatives. Thanks to work my committee is done, water conserving aerators and flush valves have been installed in select first-year housing. If the retrofits prove to be economical, they are likely to be replicated across grounds. Progress has also been made in our attempts to change procurements policies so that our graduation robes are made with more biodegradable materials. The weekly sustainability email newsletter, SustainaUnity, has also been a success this year, with hundreds of new readers and great events going on each week. Finally, we continue to work with the University Administration to find a location suitable for a Sustainability themed on-campus dorm.
We are also excited to announce that the first installment in our StudCo Environmental Film & Speaker Series was a huge success. The Campus Sustainability Day Forum was held on Campus Sustainability Day during October and attracted an audience of almost fifty people (including a local news crew). Andrew Greene, Cheryl Gomez, and others spoke about the environmental challenges our University face and how we are addressing them. Our committee hopes to further develop this series by hosting a speaker event once every two weeks beginning next semester. A forum on alternative energy and a forum highlighting “Trash Your Trash” week are already being planned.
As you probably just figured out, we will be doing “Track Your Trash” again this year, but bigger and better than ever. We will be getting students all over the university to carry around their trash for a week to make people more aware of how much they throw away on a daily basis. This year we plan on getting first years involved and getting the whole UVa community to be more aware of their consumption practices.
So, Happy Holidays UVa and we look forward to working with you again next semester!
P.S: Do some green holiday shopping
