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With the publication of the College Sustainability Report Card 2010, more than 1,100 school survey responses from over 300 institutions are now available online. In total, these surveys offer more than 10,000 pages of data collected from colleges and universities during the summer of 2009. To access surveys from other schools, go to the surveys section of the website. To see grades, or to access additional surveys submitted by this school, please click the "Back to Report Card" link at the beginning or end of the survey.
Name: Carol Dreibelbis
Position (in student organization): Co-President
Date survey submitted: June 16, 2009
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
1) Please describe the student-run campus environmental/sustainability organization in which you have a leadership role.
Name of organization: Greening Princeton
Number of active members: Approx. 25
Website: http://www.princeton.edu/~greening/
Date of last meeting: April 27th 2009
Frequency of meetings: Once a week
Key issues addressed and programs implemented since August 2008:
Issue addressed: The unnecessary use of energy to light dining halls during the day when natural lighting is sufficient.
Program implemented: “Daylight Dining”: Greening Princeton worked with Dining Services to encourage minimal use of artificial light in the dining halls during hours when there is sufficient natural light.
Issue addressed: Unnecessary use of trays in the dining halls: wasteful use of water to clean trays and a large amount of food waste due to extra room on trays for unnecessarily large quantities of food.
Program implemented: Greening Princeton worked with Dining Services to organize, publicize, implement, and get feedback from pilot tray-free meals at residential college dining halls. We also worked with Dining Services to encourage 2 residential colleges to go permanently tray-free next year.
Issue addressed: Wasteful eating club practices like lack of recycling of food waste at some clubs, large amount of general waste from nightly parties, etc.
Program implemented: A section of Greening Princeton called “Greening the Street” worked with eating clubs to create inter-club sustainability meetings, to get a pig farmer to pick up food waste at more clubs than previous years, and to create sustainability chairs at individual clubs.
Issue addressed: Lack of awareness of and involvement in the surrounding Princeton/Mercer county community. Fundraising for a cause that has little visible.
Program implemented: Instead of organizing our annual charity 5k walk/run to raise money to protect endangered tigers through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation as in previous years, we organized a charity 5k called “Greening Princeton and Beyond: Community 5k for the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association” to raise money and awareness for the local environmental organization, the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.
Progress made on each issue/program since August 2008:
Daylight Dining: Some of the dining halls have implemented the daylight dining policy and next year we want to make sure that all of the remaining dining halls follow suit.
Tray-Free Dining: Two residential college dining halls will be tray-free next year and we will be continuing to try and get the others to commit to going tray-free as well.
Greening the Street: As stated, more clubs are now working with a pig farmer to pick up their food waste, but Greening Princeton will be working next year to get all of the eating clubs to implement the same policy and to start working with FoodTASK, another on-campus student organization that delivers unused prepared food to a soup kitchen in Trenton.
Our 5k for the watershed: The run took place on Saturday, May 2nd and was a huge success. We worked in close affiliation with leadership from the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association and formed a close alliance with the association that we hope to maintain in coming years. We were sponsored by a number of local businesses and raised $665 for watershed association.
SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES AND COMPETITIONS
2) Does your group organize any sustainability challenges/competitions for your campus and/or with other colleges?
[ ] No
[ x ] Yes. Please list details for each competition.
#1 - Name of competition: Inter-Residential College Energy Savings Competition
Year initiated: 2009
Frequency of competition: This was the first year for this week-long competition: hopefully it will happen again in coming years!
Participants: Students living in participating residential colleges (essentially, groups of dorms) participate to reduce their energy use; residential college staff and facilities can participate to help out their college by turning out lights in dining halls, etc.
Incentives: The winning residential college beats the other participating college, winning honor and the knowledge that they used less energy.
Goal of competition: The ultimate goal of this competition is to raise student awareness about the small, easy, yet important steps that students can take on their own to reduce their energy consumption in their daily lives. To effect this and encourage students to keep energy consumption in mind, the concrete goal of the competition is for students to use as little energy as possible during the week-long competition. There were study breaks, speakers, movies, and other common activities planned to get students excited, encourage the use of common spaces for studying, and to educate students about their environmental impact.
Percent of energy/water/waste reduced: unknown
Lasting effects of competition: Students in participating residential colleges were encouraged to reduce energy consumption during this week, and we hope that these patterns will extend to their daily lives, even when they aren’t in a competition.
Website: N/A
#2 - Name of competition: RecycleMania
This is an intercollegiate recycling competition run by another group on campus, the Eco-Reps, each year. Greening Princeton supports and helps out with RecycleMania.
SUSTAINABILITY IN STUDENT GOVERNMENT
3) Does your student government include a specific position or committee dedicated to campus sustainability issues?
[ ] No
[ x ] Yes. Please describe:
The Princeton USG (Undergraduate Student Government) created a "Sustainability Working Group" this spring. This working group's mission is "to encourage students to consciously engage in sustainable behaviors by enacting a culture change, supporting student environmental groups, and setting a good example as a USG" (http://usg.princeton.edu/projects/working-groups.html#sustainability). To accomplish this mission, they are working on creating a student sustainability pledge and a multi-year USG Sustainability Plan.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
4) Please describe any additional campus sustainability activities or projects that you or your group has initiated at your school:
Greening Princeton was founded by graduate and undergraduate students in 2003 to bring a culture of sustainability to campus. It originally filled a niche working with university administrators and staff to make changes to purchasing, food, waste/recycling, energy and construction practices. It also recommended that the university create an administrative branch specifically dedicated to sustainability. In 2006, the Office of Sustainability was created, with whom Greening Princeton has intimately worked. In light of the growing capacity of the Office of Sustainability, Greening Princeton has focused its efforts on education and advocacy. It also created two new groups: Greening Princeton's Farmers' Market, and the Garden Project. This year, Greening Princeton organized…
- An annual 5k walk/run fundraiser for a local organization (the 2009 run raised money for the Stony Brook/Millstone Watershed Association)
- A trayless dining initiative, so now 2 campus cafeterias will be tray-free beginning fall of 2009
- Partnerships with departments/offices/other groups to help improve their sustainability practices (e.g. a Greening the Street initiative to help student-run eating clubs make energy/water/waste savings; helping the IT office look at reducing paper usage; helping the Outdoor Action freshmen orientation backpacking program improve sustainability during the trips; helping the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department green their events and meetings; and others in collaboration with the Office of Sustainability)
- Bi-monthly dinner discussions with professors and outside guests on environmental policy
- Earth hour/Earth day events
- A very successful farmers' market in the fall and spring on campus for students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding Princeton community
- An organic garden project that is expanding
- Participation in the a National Teach-In on Climate Change
5) Please list and briefly describe any other student-run organizations related to campus sustainability at your school, and provide URLs if available (e.g., student groups; student government committees; student-run food co-ops, gardens/farms, bike co-ops) and provide contact information of the student leaders, if possible:
o SURGE - the Students United for a Responsible Global Environment (organization that focuses on ghg emission reduction-related issues) https://blogs.princeton.edu/surge/
o Slow Food Princeton - organizes meetings, tastings, trips and dinners related to the slow food movement - webscript.princeton.edu/~animals/
o NJ Water Watch - a branch of a regional network that promotes the health of water systems in New Jersey - http://princetonwaterwatch.wordpress.com/category/events/
o U-Bikes - campus bike coop (also offers repair services) http://www.princeton.edu/sustainability/student-initiatives/pen/ubikes/
o PAWS - campus animal welfare society, runs events/meetings about vegetarianism, veganism, and animal rights -webscript.princeton.edu/~animals/
o Princeton Environmental Action - new group that looks at environmental entrepreneurship
o Eco-Reps - campus recycling society.
o 2D - vegetarian co-op.
o Greening Princeton Farmer's Market - bi-annual market that hosts local organic vendors, open to wider town community - www.princeton.edu/greening/market/
o The Garden Project - http://www.princeton.edu/sustainability/student-initiatives/pen/garden/
o FoodTASK - collection of prepared but unserved food from dining halls/eating clubs for weekly delivery to Trenton, NJ soup kitchens.
Questions 6 is for informational purposes only; your response will NOT be included in the Report Card evaluation process.
6) Please list any regional or national networks with which your group is affiliated (e.g., Energy Action Coalition/Campus Climate Challenge, Sierra Student Coalition, a state PIRG, a state student sustainability coalition):
Greening Princeton is affiliated with the National Teach-In for Climate Change, and the Real Food Challenge.
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