Sustainability may be a big catch phrase now, but it's nothing new at the University of Oregon. Students, faculty and staff have been focusing on issues of sustainability for so long here that it has become second nature.
* The University of Oregon has been actively recycling since the mid 1970s. The recycling program went through many different stages of development (mainly through the leadership of student volunteers), until it was officially established as the Campus Recycling Program in the Spring of 1991. It is an unparalleled success having gained many awards and honors over the last decade, including the 1997 National Recycling Coalition award for Outstanding School Recycling Program. (See their web site for more information.)
* The University of Oregon Planning Office has also gained national notoriety since the seventies when they implemented an entirely new methodology for planning that came to be known as the Oregon Experiment. Cutting edge at the time for its innovative way of taking future needs into consideration (see the Planning Office's web site, http://uoregon.edu/~uplan/for more information), the Oregon Experiment led to further planning documents like the Campus Plan (2005) and the Sustainable Development Plan (2005). All of these documents have shaped the way the UO takes into consideration issues of longevity, resource use, alternative transportation, efficient design, and other issues of sustainability.
* The UO Planning Office is also recognized for its ground-breaking bicycle plan which was first established in the seventies and later revised in the 1991. The decision to promote bicycles as alternative transportation was taken seriously and new effective, bike-friendly, bike racks were designed that have been subsequently copied by colleges all across the nation, from the University of Washington to Cornell.
* In 1989, Vice president for Administration, Dan Williams recognized the need to establish a body to advise him on environmental concerns. As issues of pesticide use or recycling options or discussions about sustainable purchasing came up, there was no system in place for dealing with them. The result was the university's Environmental Issues Committee (EIC), established in 1991 through the president's office. The EIC meets monthly and acts as visionary body for university sustainability issues.
* In 1997 the University approved the Comprehensive Environmental Policy Statement (CEP) developed by the Community Planning Workshop (through the academic department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management). The CEP now guides UO faculty, staff, and students in everything from purchasing paper to discarding hazardous waste from old computers.
These examples are just a sampling of ways that the University of Oregon is keeping sustainability in mind. Indeed, with practices and attitudes so deeply rooted, it's easy to forget to step back and look at the big picture to see how far we've come and what we've accomplished. Not that we want to revel in our successes, but knowing where we are and what we're doing well now is important for realizing our potential for greater sustainability in the future.
In 2000-2001, the EIC decided that a survey of sustainability was needed to get a better understanding of what the university has accomplished thus far. The highly decentralized administrative environment at the UO gives administration, faculty and staff room to experiment and develop feasible sustainable practices. Realizing the importance of information sharing for continued implementation of better practices for sustainability, the EIC proposed the project that culminated in this web site. Two months were spent interviewing faculty, staff, and students from all across campus to find out what exciting things were happening on campus in terms of sustainability. The plethora of examples was compiled into a database that you can search from this web site.
The database is organized to correspond with the CEP that was issued in 1997 by the Vice President for Administration. The CEP includes six primary categories of sustainability goals: 1) environmental education, 2) environmentally responsible purchasing, 3) efficient use and conservation of energy, water, and other resources, 4) minimization of solid waste, 5) minimization of hazardous waste and toxics, and 6) environmentally responsible campus design and planning. We've also included a category for environmental equity/human rights. We hope you find the information provided both useful and encouraging. Be sure to contact us with new examples.
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