Sustainability Alliance Brings Together SLU Green Groups

Environmental clubs and organizations on campus are working together to create a new student initiative. The Sustainability Alliance was created last semester with different representatives from these groups. 

Brianna Hargraves ’22 is a currently part of St. Lawrence’s Sustainability Program and lives on a farm five miles from campus where students work on an organic farm and take classes in sustainability. She helped start the new alliance to help connect environmental clubs and encourage collaborations between them. 

“I felt that there needed to be a space where all the environmental clubs could gather as a collective so that we could not only help each other but realize the mutual stake we all had in the issues we were trying to address and the goals we were trying to achieve,” Hargraves said.

Hargraves also said the alliance can also help with problems many student groups face, like leadership transitions and intergenerational issues. 

The Sustainability Alliance is currently focusing on the university’s environmental policies, like the Climate Action Plan. St. Lawrence’s Climate Action Plan is a commitment that the university will be carbon neutral by 2040.

“We have created the goal of trying to revise the school’s Climate Action Plan as a collective that all the environmental clubs can endorse and get behind,” Hargraves said. 

“And hopefully submit for consideration by the school.” However, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that there is only 11 years to reduce carbon emissions before the damage cannot be reversed. “I think 2040 is not soon enough,” Hargraves said.

The alliance also plans to better connect environmental student organizations with the Green Fund, money students can use for any environmentally-related project that regenerates every year. 

According to Hargraves, this will “start building positive narratives around the Green Fund and establish why it’s an important resource for students on campus, specifically in trying to make environmental change.” 

Many students do not realize this fund exists and can be used by anyone on campus.

Another goal of the group is to increase alumni involvement in their efforts. “We are also thinking of trying to get alumni in sustainability or environmental related fields involved to increase pressure on St. Lawrence to prioritize environmentally sustainable initiatives,” Hargraves said. While the club is still new, Hargraves believes they are off to a strong start. 

“In just our first few meetings we have successfully created a needed space for all the environmental clubs to collaborate, exchange ideas, and mobilize as a larger sect of the student body in order to hopefully more effectively create environmental change on campus,” she said.

 For students looking to be more environmentally friendly in their daily lives at SLU, Hargraves suggests having a more vegetarian diet, which has a lower carbon footprint. She also recommends students attend Green Cafés in the fall and find other ways to eat local food.