Faculty and staff invited to participate in first Sustainability Summit

Students, faculty and staff are invited to the first Clemson University Sustainability Summit, which will focus on sustainability issues facing the University and work to find solutions to some of those problems. The summit, offered during two scheduled events, takes place at 1 p.m. March 6 and 9 a.m. March 7 – both in the Watt Family Innovation Center.

In spring 2019, the University received its first commissioned STARS report, detailing and reviewing the sustainability of different aspects of campus. Clemson University earned a Silver rating and received a 53.8 percent on its report

Silver is good, but student Caleb Todd, campus advancement director for Clemson University Student Government and co-president of Tigers for Green Innovation, thinks Clemson can and will do better.

“The STARS report highlighted obvious problems in operations that we can change,” said Todd, who is a junior environmental and natural resources major. He said some of those problems could be fixed tomorrow if more people were aware of them.

“This summit has been created to help make progress on these issues, which would help the University and its students immensely,” said Todd. “We hope ideas coming out of the summit will develop into tangible projects on Clemson’s campus, with the support of the Student Sustainability Initiative Fund and the Sustainability Commission.”

The first day of the summit will be informational, with panels of Clemson faculty and staff, debates and a keynote presentation by Weston Dripps, director of Furman University’s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability. The second day will have student groups working on issues related to recycling and waste, climate action and energy, sustainability leadership and education, and residential living/housing and dining.

“In the long term, with the support of the Watt Family Innovation Center team, we hope to make this an event that impacts the state and region, as this not only Clemson’s fight,” said Todd. “With over 120 individuals already registered, we expect this event to be a great success and one that reflects the changing culture of sustainability on our campus.”

There is no cost to participate in the event, and complementary food will be provided on both days. Interested faculty and staff can register for the event here.