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Students are Making World Learning Greener

Environmental working group of students and staff are changing World Learning practices making the organization even greener.

BRATTLEBORO, VT (March 29, 2008) -- Written by Joyce Marcel
SIT Graduate alum
PIM 40An explosion of staff and student energy has helped turn the nonprofit World Learning and its School for International Training into the greenest organization on the hill.

"World Learning is very committed to environmental issues," said John Fox, senior director of strategic communications.

The organization has about 250 staff members in Brattleboro, Fox said, and in academic year 2007-2008, it had about 248 students on campus. So that's gives it a fairly large ecological footprint.

Still going green is a natural evolution. Of SIT's 75 Study Abroad programs in 49 countries, 13 are focused on Sustainable Development.

"We have wildlife conservation programs in Australia and Panama," Fox said. "We have a very interesting program we added recently in Iceland, which is focused on renewable energy and technology. This is a program looking at Iceland's being a world leader in the development of renewable energy technologies - wind power, geothermal, hydroelectric. Students can can meet the engineers and learn the governmental policies. These students are young engineers who want to develop careers in renewable energy technology. In Oman, we have a program looking at international economics and energy in the Gulf Region."

At home, SIT students have gotten deeply involved in changing the organization. A formal environmental working group consisting of graduate students and staff, with its own constitution, has been examining practices across the board.

Take composting, for example.
"We have industrial composting set up so we can compost meat, bones and paper products on top of the regular composting of vegetable matter," Fox said. "We've expanded out composting to the dormitories on campus. We have compost bins in other parts of the campus. We've expanded composting way beyond our cafeteria.

We send our compost down to Greenfield, Mass., to Martin's Farm. We are one of the largest composters in Windham Co. We are composting 50,000 pounds a year."

The cafeteria is part of the Vermont Fresh Program, "which allows us to serve more local food to keep our impact lower and more local," Fox said. "And the takeaway containers are all biodegradable."

But wait, there's more. In 2002, the organization started focusing on water use.

"Our campus uses 3,400,000 gallons of water each year," Fox said. "We felt the biggest savings could be met by changing all of our toilets. We went from the four- and five-gallon toilets to all 1.6-gallon toilets. This made such an impact on our usage that our water department called and said there was problem with the meter. Our water bill this year is going to be about $25,000 dollars."
This past November, the school switched to all green cleaning materials.

"We have found that our switch to green cleaning products is costing us 15 percent less than our previous approach," Fox said. "Of course we've changed most of the light bulbs. We've supported additional Bee Line bus route through campus, to encourage students to leave their cars at home. Bee Line runs on biofuel."

The environmental working group has joined with Brattleboro's Post Oil Solutions to open a community garden on campus.  When it gets going, its produce will be donated to a local food bank.

"That's an effort in progress," Fox said. "It will be gardened by graduate students."

Megan Luce, a student in the Program of International Management, is president of the environmental working group. She grew up in Warren, Vt., but has lived in Taiwan and South America.
"I grew up in Vermont with Green-Up Day and nature appreciation," Luce said. "Environmental protection is kind of ingrained in Vermont children, so it's something that was always with me."

During her travels, Luce did volunteer work on organic farms and in responsible agriculture.

"I'm a foodie," Luce said. "I love quality food, and I love to eat. I think that eating can be a political act. And it's also the easiest way for people to get actively involved in environmental conservation - by knowing where they're getting their food from. And Brattleboro is such a food-culture rich area."

Luce is enthusiastic about campus environmental activism. "We're trying to change policy," she said. "We'd like to see changes in the curriculum that allow an environmental perspective to become one of the core learnings we receive here. As climate change becomes more and more evident in our lives and our world, it's becoming more and more clear that there are direct links between resource scarcity and conflict. Resource scarcity can be a direct consequence of environmental degradation. As an institute of higher education, it's our responsibility to be in the forefront of educating our communities."

So far, the group has developed a good working relationship with senior management, Luce said. "We' haven't always seen eye to eye, but they've been receptive to meeting with us, and they consider our suggestions in their planning," she said. "We're also advocating that they create a position  for a sustainability coordinator. And we're researching alternative forms of energy - maybe having one of the dorms heated by a pellet burner instead of oil heat. Right now we're advocating. The next step would be finding the funding.

Last week, Luce and the group put on a conference on environmental justice and preservation."It's about looking at activism, holistic design, family, ecology, biofuels, food security, and bringing together a lot of different voices to tell the complete tale," Luce said. "The conference was open to the public and we had an outpouring of support from people from the greater Brattleboro area and from Keene, N.H."

With all her efforts to make World Learning greener, you would think that Luce's career goal would have something to do with environmental activism. But no - her internship will be with Democracy Matters, doing field organization in colleges to bring about campaign finance reform.

Reprinted by permission from Joyce Marcel and the Brattleboro Reformer
Originally printed on March 29, 2008