Student Showcase 2010

Student Showcase is an annual event where students present projects that they have produced throughout the semester. A wide range of topics are presented from biology to early childhood development to sustainability efforts. Lucy Stone and Amanda Norris presented "Green Revolution at Peace" to a full classroom. To view the presentation click here.

Scrap to Sculpture Contest

The Peace College Green Team has created an entry for Cameron Villages Scrap to Sculpture Contest. Immie Miles and the Green Team designed and assembled a peace sign using scrap material. Stop by Talbots at Cameron Village to see the art!

Peace Green Team and Stunt Night!

Stunt Night is an annual Peace College tradition where students create skits and parodies of life at Peace that year. In this clip students portray the "Green Marches" that the Green Team frequently go on around campus catching faculty and staff off guard! Click here to see the video.

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Peace College Community; Leaders in Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Congratulations to the entire Peace College Community for ranking number 68 out of 267 participating colleges in RecycleMania 2010! For 2009 year Peace College finished at number 119. RecycleMania is a competition between colleges and universities in North America to reduce waste. Every spring, students across the country compete for national supremacy to determine which school can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste.

Our reduced waste stream and increased participation in recycling is a credit to all the staff, students and faculty at Peace College. Particular credit and thanks goes to goes to the Green Team and its enthusiastic leader, Immie miles.

Sustainability Leader

Walmart the largest private employer in the U.S. announced it would squeeze 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, the retailer rolled out Supplier Energy Efficiency Program (SEEP) with the goal of helping its suppliers save electricity and money, in turn bringing down the price of products.

The premise behind SEEP is simple -- share with its suppliers the expertise it has accumulated through making its own fleet of clubs and super stores more efficient. The program gives suppliers access to a slew of proven energy efficient technologies in the areas of lighting, HVAC, building envelope and building controls -- at the same prices Walmart pays. The results are very good!

In addition, Walmart also is promoting its Sustainability Product Index, a guide for rating the sustainability of products. The project will be rolled out in three phases, starting with a survey of all of Walmart's suppliers around the globe. The survey consists of 15 questions in four categories: energy and climate, material efficiency, natural resources and people and community. Suppliers were asked to complete the questionnaire by October 1, 2009. The Supplier Sustainability Assesment can be found here.

Visit the Walmart Sustainability web site to learn more.

Reusing 2 Liter Bottles

Click here to see a fun video of things to create with an empty 2 liter bottle.
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Shifting from Saying to Doing at Tufts University

“The goal is to transform the norm from being environmentally unfriendly to being more sustainable. People usually act out of convenience and do not realize their choices are made through what is already the default. In our society, the default is not environmentally friendly. It takes a small group of people to work to change the default to greener policies.”

Dallase Scott, a graduate student in the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program at Tufts University

Tufts’ latest environmental campaign. Shifting from Saying to Doing, is trying to change campus culture in regard to paper waste. While members of the class last semester focused on the issue of trays in the dining halls, this semester, students have turned their attention to paper usage at Tufts.

Rather than merely discussing environmental policy, students study behavioral approaches to change and their own individual impact on the environment with the goal of empowering their peers to adopt greener practices. Students keep weekly blogs to reflect on the personal challenges they face in the paper-reduction campaign, as well as to practice effective activism and communication. To learn more click here.
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Sustainability: Different Shades of Green in Higher Education

More than 100 higher education leaders from around the country will gather at Wake Forest March 22-23 for “Taking It to the Next Level: Strategies for Adaptation across the Sustainability Curriculum” to discuss and debate the ways sustainability can be better integrated into academics. More than a dozen other national leaders in sustainability in higher education will speak at the conference. Here is the complete program: http://sustainability.wfu.edu/conference/agenda/.

The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register at http://sustainability.wfu.edu/conference/registration/
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Johns Hopkins University to Halve CO2 Gas Emissions in 15 years

According to a press release from last week, Johns Hopkins University says it plans to cut the school's carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 15 years. University officials announced one of the more ambitious sustainability initiatives in higher education, with a goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than half by 2025. The plan also calls for creation of an Environment, Sustainability and Health Institute. Officials state they will invest more than $73 million in conservation and efficiency measures.

In addition the university recently added a new undergraduate major and minor in global environmental change and sustainability as well as a new master's degree in energy policy and climate.
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Green Plastics Breakthrough by IBM and Stanford

Think of IBM, and it's most likely that computer hardware or software will come to mind well before the development of new, greener materials. However, IBM has staked out an impressive track record in matters of environmental responsibility and sustainability over the past several years. IBM's latest contribution arrives through a partnership with Stanford University researchers with whom the company has made progress in the development of sustainable, biodegradable plastics.

As described in an article on IBM's Building a Smarter Planet Blog, the collaborative research effort is leading to findings and developments with beneficial implications for improved recycling, pollution reduction, and medicine.

Environmentally sustainable plastics, smarter recycling methods, new ways to deliver medicine – these are all areas that could benefit from recent discoveries in green polymer chemistry by some of our scientists at IBM Research and Stanford University. The discoveries will be published in a paper in the American Chemical Society Journal, Macromolecules, on March 10th. You can find an abstract of the paper now at acs.org.

IBM, Stanford Unveil Green Chemistry Breakthrough You Tube Video
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