This week, on March 2, the IU Office of Sustainability will be two years old. In a presentation at the national convention of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) in Denver, I compared the IUB campus sustainability transformation to the Starship Enterprise's warp drive system, which uses antimatter to achieve speeds exceeding the speed of light. The theoretical limit to the Star Trek propulsion system is Warp 10, where infinite speed is achieved. Unfortunately, at infinite speed, you find yourself everywhere in the universe at once.

As we strive to involve as many people as possible in the pursuit of campus sustainability, our networks have grown exponentially and our little office often seems to be moving at Warp 10, where we find ourselves everywhere on campus at once. Seven working groups help us make progress on 20 key measureable goals for 2020 that evolved from our 2020 Vision, the hundreds of measures in AASHE's Sustainable Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS), the goals embodied in our Campus Master Plan, and the goals stated in the 2008 Campus Sustainability Plan. Sustainability is an issue everywhere on campus all of the time as we aim for our vision of becoming an international campus sustainability leader by 2020.

It is easy to veer off course at times or get distracted by the sheer volume of moving parts. Fortunately, we get course corrections at regular intervals from students, faculty and staff who call or write to ask seemingly simple questions. Why are we still burning coal on campus? Why don't we have any outdoor recycling containers? Why are we behind in RecycleMania? What are we doing about all the trees being cut down along the bypass expansion? Where does the stuff go when a building is demolished on campus? Why are the buses so crowded? Why don't we have safe bike paths on campus? Today, I got a question from a staff member who asked for scientific proof that recycling was better than sending materials to the landfill, where they could be mined in the future.

As we begin the third year of our journey where no Hoosier has gone before, we really appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions. Beam yourselves aboard and keep us on course as we journey through the decade of sustainability together, at warp speed. 

During the spring semester, IUOS will be working with individual green teams to improve our programming.  Our Green Teams Intern Aaron Harmon began conducting informal interviews with Green Team leaders in early January to gather feedback about the program website, certification system, and monthly green bags.  From 1:00pm to 2:00 pm on Wednesday, March 2 in the IMU Bryan Room, we are inviting green team members as well as other interested parties to participate in a discussion focused on these program improvements.  If you are interested in joining this discussion, please contact Aaron at iugt@indiana.edu. 

Outside of the office, new green teams have formed, and several existing teams are moving up through the office certification system.  Here are some campus updates:

2. Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) achieves Sprout Certification.  Just after having finished their Seed Certification, the four month old EHS Green Team achieved Sprout Certification through improvements such as minimizing paper use by posting information on how a person can create and send an electronic version of a document and decreasing the environmental impact of the office's computers by providing their co-workers with helpful tips from UITS.

3. IU Libraries achieves Seed Certification. The Libraries team is another which was established well before IUOS.  Representing all aspects of library business and administration, this group quickly achieved the Seed Certification by pursuing initiatives including, but not limited to:  establishing a central location for the collection and re-distribution of surplus office supplies;  designating a location near printers for saving one-sided prints; programming print defaults for double-sided printing; maintaining office plants in common areas to improve air quality; unplugging electronic appliances when they are not in use to avoid phantom energy loss.

4. School of Public and Environmental Affairs forms new green team.  Brought about by increased enthusiasm from students, faculty, and staff, the SPEA team held its kickoff meeting at the beginning of the spring semester.  There was a large and diverse turnout at the meeting, and based on the energy that was evident amongst the attendees, it is likely that the team will soon be Seed Certified.  For more information about this team, contact Katie Sewell at katsew@indiana.edu. 

5. School of Education forms new green team.  In having been interested in issues of campus sustainability for sometime, Professor Cary A. Buzzelli and Lynn Greenfield organized a kickoff meeting.  Attendees registered the newly-formed team and discussed how to best structure the team, for it is housed in one of the largest Indiana University units.  Currently comprised of faculty and staff members, the team plans to work with student organizations to help make everyday operations at the School of Education more environmentally sound.  For more information about this team, contact Prof. Cary A. Buzzelli at cbuzzell@indiana.edu.  

For more information about IUOS's Green Team Program, visit www.indiana.edu/~sustain/Green_Teams/index.html.  Questions or comments can be directed to iugt@indiana.edu.  

General comments and questions should be directed to sustain@indiana.edu.

Our address:

IU Office of Sustainability
1001 E. 10th St.
Geology 429
Bloomington, IN 47405

For IUOS staff:

Bill Brown
Director of Sustainability
brownwm@indiana.edu
812-855-1822

Emilie Rex
Assistant Director of Sustainability
ekrex@indiana.edu
812-855-2678