Our coalition aims to provide practices that anyone on campus or in the community can implement in order to make a difference in the sustainability of our surrounding environment. We also hope to influence the decision makers within our campus to steer our new development towards a greener shade of 'Green and Gold.'

What is sustainability and how does it relate to USF St. Pete’s Campus?

Sustainability is generally defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). We envision USF St. Pete as a sustainable community that provides for our social and economic needs without jeopardizing the health of our environment.

To do this, we need to cultivate a learning culture that promotes environmental awareness. Awareness of how much we as individuals and as a campus are contributing to major green issues such as energy consumption, water efficiency, and waste management.

Short-Term vs. Long Term Action Plans

Every day we make choices and we take actions. These choices can be as unconscious and simple as how quickly we will shower, or as conscious and complex as what type of car to buy next year. Each of these decisions, small or large has an implication on our biosphere. If we decide to enjoy a hot, relaxing shower, mindless of the duration, we are simply wasting water. If we save up to buy a hybrid or smart car, we are helping to reduce our country’s dependency on fossil fuels for energy.

As a Coalition, our goal is to help educate our peers, whether they are staff, faculty, or students, to realize the implications of their decisions and influence them to make eco-friendly choices in order to minimize our impact on the environment.

We plan to do this by setting goals. Short-term goals that can be implemented and realized by everyone without much thought or energy, and long-term goals, which we’ll need community and faculty support in order to obtain.

Short-Term Initiatives:

The CSC (Coalition for a Sustainable Campus) will use the Facebook platform to and other medium to host events and distribute information that raises awareness of simple actions that anyone can implement to make a change. Some things in the pipeline include:

Use of Facebook as platform for recruitment, education, and communication

• providing tips to students on how they can individually make day-to-day differences (i.e.: minimizing margins to reduce printing needs, turning off computers and monitors when not in use, unplugging cell phone chargers and other electronics when not in use, shortening shower time, turning off water when brushing teeth, recycling, using other non-motorized modes of transportation, etc.)
• creating a forum for communication of ideas (i.e.: the discussion board)
• keeping students/faculty abreast of events and news relevant to sustainability on campus
• mobilizing all like-minded groups to collaborate for a common and shared goal (i.e.: integrating Eco-Core, the Harborside Activities Board, Vegetarian Society, Environmental Awareness Society, etc.)

Involvement in upcoming "Welcome Back" Events

• Have a table at the fair for recruitment
• Distribute the Energy Star Back-to-School Shopping List as part of new freshman orientation

Organize Events and activities that provide social interaction and environmental benefit

• cleanups of the Harbourside and involve existing groups

Long-Term Initiatives:

These goals cannot be accomplished overnight, but will deliver large outcomes with careful planning and implementation.

Get involved with campus developments such as

• Xeriscaping/Front Lawn Project (ensuring that native and indigenous plants are used in new landscape plans)
• Creating a community garden on campus as an education tool
• Creating a community compost for waste reduction and educational tool
• Installing water sensors within our existing irrigation system to ensure lawn is not being water when unnecessary

• Recommending other surfaces for new pavement and sidewalks to  ease water runoff issues

Participate in RecycleMania 2010 (nationwide competition between colleges and universities to promote waste reduction activities)

Create a Newsletter/ E-'Zine to be published in conjunction with the Crow's Nest, or create column to be featured in Crow's Nest on an on-going basis

Have and "Eco-Olympics" Challenge, with Residence Halls dueling against each other to see who can best minimize energy consumption

Evaluation of Campus's current state of Sustainability