Hungry students en route to the George Sherman Union this Thursday were pleasantly intercepted by the “tent city” set up in the GSU plaza for the second annual sustainability@BU Festival. In an effort to enlist followers to the green cause, on-campus reps from the Student Sustainability Network talked to students about how they can reduce their ecological footprint and make Boston University a more environmentally savvy school.
The sustainability@BU initiative encourages the community to make a difference– starting with baby steps. Representatives at Thursday’s event asked terriers to join the challenge by making their lives “greener” in one way or another. Every month, the program offers a different pledging challenge. At the plaza this past week, students lined up to promise to reduce their impact by switching to reusable coffee thermoses, provided to them by the sustainability interns on site. The Student Sustainability Network posed a question for the caffeine cravers on campus. “Did you know,” Sustainability asked, “that by using your own coffee cup, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 1.25 lbs in one week?”
In the shadow of the Join the Challenge tables and the weekly Farmer’s Market, clubs and vendors that follow the eco-friendly trend also set up shop: ZipCar, Goodwill, the Geography and Environment Department, and Urban Adventures, to name a few.
The festival included more than just the plaza happenings. Students were given the chance to join the conversation about global sustainability with “Levers for Change,” a panel discussion about moving towards a more sustainable society, lead by Dean Elmore and Professors Cutler Cleveland (CAS) and Kristen McCormack (SMG).
For more information on sustainabililty@BU’s upcoming events, visit www.bu.edu/sustainability
