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I?m Shana Weber. I manage the Office of Sustainability here at Princeton University. The mission
of the office is to coordinate across campus with all different programs, from folks who
operate the University on a daily basis to academic programs, student initiatives, and
administrators.
Over the last several years at Princeton, there have been many new student groups who
have formed around sustainability initiatives, and one of the roles that the office plays
is to bring those students together, to create a common space so that the students can actually
work together to exchange ideas. So we meet every couple of weeks under the umbrella of
the Princeton Environmental Network, and right now we have over a dozen student groups on
campus who are active in the group.
I?m with Princeton Ecology Representatives, and one of our projects will be the Residential
Education Program where we reach out to freshmen and sort of induce a culture change that promotes
sustainability from the very beginning.
We?re Greening Princeton.
One of the most impactful projects that we?ve been involved with as a group is to help Dining
Services with their initiative to remove trays from the dining halls, which has drastically
reduced the amount of food waste produced by the dining halls. It?s also saved money
on water and energy costs.
We?re with U-Bikes. We?re the two co-managers of the program.
Every year, Transportation and Parking Services picks up tons of bikes that have been abandoned
on campus. And we get them and we do our best and work with the Princeton Bike Co-op to
refurbish as many of these bikes as we can and put them in working order so that we can
rent them out on a semester basis to University community members, faculty, staff and students.
I?m with the Farmers? Market and we are here to promote local sustainable food on the Princeton
University campus. We?re hoping to now work with the township market and sort of expand
offerings to students to where there?s a box share program where students can get regular
groceries, as well as promote local organic food on campus throughout the year, not just
during the market season.
My name is Justine Hausheer, and I am a sustainability fellow. I graduated in June 2010 and I?ll
be working with the office for one year. I?ve been working on alumni outreach for the program.
We have a lot of great alumni who come through the student groups here, so I?m working on
building a database, surveying previous alums to keep track of all the great work that they
did for the office while they were here at Princeton.
Sustainability is a priority for the institution. It?s built into our master plan. We have a
sustainability plan, which we are deep into implementing right now. And what I see for
the future is all of us gaining an understanding as a community how we can incorporate sustainability
into our daily lives, and incorporate those principles into our daily decisions. So it?s
really a culture change effort across the institution.