Walking along the busy streets of Atlanta, it is easy to get caught up in the hustle of downtown.
Most of Georgia State’s community travels through this urban setting without thinking about the impact they have on Atlanta’s environment, and it is easy to miss simple opportunities to make a green difference.
The new Office of Sustainability aims to engage and educate the Georgia State community to unite and Go Green.
After five years of monthly meetings at Waffle House, Georgia State’s sustainability program now has an office.
In 2009, Georgia State professors Dr. Michael Black, who teaches neuroscience, and Dr. Dabney Dixon, who teaches chemistry, began meeting with faculty and staff to discuss ideas about increasing sustainability on the Georgia State campus.
These professors are members of the University Senate Sustainability Committee, which is the representative of all matters sustainability to the University Senate.
The group noticed that there was a growing interest within the Georgia State community to learn about more opportunities to make greener choices on campus.
With the Office of Sustainability now in place, Jennifer Asman, Program Coordinator for the Office of Sustainability, has established goals in order to inform Georgia State students of new opportunities.
“Creating a culture of sustainability on campus is my biggest goal for Georgia State,” Asman said. “We want to do that through awareness campaigns, student engagement and introducing sustainability into the curriculum.”
Asman said that she plans on talking with faculty, students and administrators in order to figure out ways to spread awareness of campus activities, like their curriculum workshops and lectures that are held throughout the semester.
Some of the goals the Office of Sustainability is working toward accomplishing are getting safer bicycle and pedestrian pathways downtown, working with dining services to cut down post-consumer food waste and working with facilities to decide how to benchmark current energy use.
“Working in a downtown, urban setting forces us to be creative to bring sustainability to campus, and I like that,” Asman said.
Not only will the Office of Sustainability need to address the issues Georgia State has with being sustainable but it will also need to do so within the confines of Atlanta.
Georgia State’s buildings and community are integrated with the city, which means that urban factors, such as tourism and traffic, impact Georgia State’s ability to implement sustainability plans, whereas other college campuses are faced with issues that can be directly dealt with through the university system.
Although Georgia State’s downtown location requires creative solutions, the Office of Sustainability has already started to bring more sustainable resources to campus and is looking forward to impacting Atlanta as well.
“A public institution of higher learning as large as ours definitely needs to be involved in local and global discussions over how to live a lifestyle and design infrastructures in ways that are less destructive and more sustainable so that we are not living at the expense of others – others alive now and future generations of species,” Dr. Carrie Packwood Freeman, leader of the Sustainable Energy Tribe, said.
On Jan. 8, the office announced plans to use technical assistance from the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Community Choices Program to provide a campus-wide bicycle plan. The project will start this month.
The Sustainability Office also announced on its Facebook page that Georgia State is introducing a new Sustainability Library. The library is in the beginning phase of ordering books and all of these resources will be available to the entire campus community.
An interactive campus sustainability map will also be coming to Georgia State soon because of efforts by geology professor Dr. Tim Hawthorne, a supporter of the Office of Sustainability.
Some students are glad to see more opportunities arise to go green on campus because they believe that the environment is something that Georgia State should protect.
“I think all campuses should go greener. We are such a big influence on the community around us, and I think it would be better if we focused on being more friendly to the environment,” Chariss Newsom, a junior geology major, said.
Justice Cooper, a sophomore marketing major, agrees.
“I think finding ways to be green is always a plus because we can do that in so many ways. All you need is to look at the trash cans to see how many plastic bottles are in there. All we need is one recycling bin to help the Earth,” Cooper said.
Asman noticed the amount of enthusiasm to go green among Georgia State students and is focused on enabling college students’ drive to live sustainable lives.
“I see college campuses as being the perfect opportunity to teach people to live sustainably. Students are at the perfect age to take that with them for the rest of their lives. They can also take that out to their communities when they leave,” Asman said.
Some students who are passionate to learn more about creating sustainable communities started making a difference within the Georgia State community before the creation of the Office of Sustainability.
These campus groups are the Atlanta Herpetology Club, Environmental Law Society, GSU Bikes, University Housing Living Green Community and the Sustainable Energy Tribe.
Students who are involved in various Go Green student organizations are dedicated to the same mission as Asman. The Office of Sustainability will be able to represent these organizations and use them to help engage more of the student population.
“The Office of Sustainability will provide more administrative and leadership help to get programs off the ground and help fund them, also offering stability over time as students graduate. As an all-volunteer group, the Sustainable Energy Tribe primarily runs on the energy of students, and I’m hoping the group can now achieve an even higher profile on campus and interest more students in the importance of helping the campus go green,” Dr. Packwood Freeman, leader of the Sustainable Energy Tribe, said.
There are plenty of ways to help support Georgia State’s mission to go green even if you are not involved in a student organization.
One opportunity is to support The Office of Sustainability’s decision to work on getting Georgia State to become a National Tree Campus.
The Arbor Day Foundation focuses on encouraging and enabling communities to plant and sustain trees and Tree Campus USA is one of their programs that is aimed toward college students and faculty.
Through designating days to gather communities together, National Tree Campus teaches students how to plant trees and then gives them the opportunity to plant trees in small groups throughout the surrounding area.
If you are interested in supporting The Office of Sustainability’s goal to become a National Tree Campus, email Jennifer Asman at jasman@gsu.edu for more information.
