“Sustainability” is a term heard with increasing frequency around the nation and the world. The concept of sustainability applies to all aspects of life, addressing ecology, society and the economy.
While for many institutions sustainability starts and ends with energy efficiency and recycling, our mission is much more expansive. In practice, that requires an integrated approach involving not only students and faculty, but local governments, businesses, and citizens working closely together. For example:
Our students have committed all residence halls to obtaining their energy through “green blocks” either produced on campus or purchased.
Our dining facilities compost food waste which is then used on our two laboratory farms, keeping up to 600 pounds of material per day out of the waste stream.
In the classroom, our highly respected programs in environmental science and agriculture have been focusing on sustainable practices for many years. In fact, sustainability concepts are also built directly into the academic content of many classes.
