By The Environmental Colloquium Class

Has anyone ever scolded you for not recycling, not composting, driving too much or leaving your light on in the name of “sustainability”?

Do you ever feel like those small adjustments are inconsequential since they are just individual actions? I mean, what does turning off one light do if 300 million other people have left theirs on?

It actually does a lot. Individual actions do add up, and although that may not be evident on a national or global scale, it is definitely obvious on a smaller scale, say the scale of the Earlham community.

What if you were one of 1,200 other students and 500 faculty and staff turning off your lights, recycling, carpooling, biking, composting and eating locallysourced food each day? That would surely make an impact.

We all know, however, that Earlham is not making the difference that it could be. So where does Earlham as a whole stand regarding sustainability? What are students, faculty, staff and administrators doing to help promote sustainability through individual and institutional actions?

This semester, the Environmental Colloquium class, along with help from tons of staff and administrative faculty, sought answers to these questions. They began by helping Earlham fill out the new Sustainability Tracking And Rating System (STARS) developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Earlham is a charter member of this voluntary assessment. STARS will help us see where we are as a college regarding sustainable practices. The data and information gathered will help inform future actions that both individuals and the institution can take to make our community more sustainable.

Earlham will submit its first institution-wide assessment at the end of this year and will resubmit an updated assessment every three years to evaluate if, and how, the college is progressing.

The STARS assessment looks at more than just Earlham’s recycling, composting, transportation and energy usage — things that usually come to mind when we think about sustainability.

STARS is a comprehensive assessment that looks at environmental, social and economic components of sustainability in institutions of higher education. This means STARS also includes curricular and co-curricular education, investment practices, general public engagement, coordination and planning, and diversity and affordability of the institution.

Curious about what we have found after a semester’s worth of work? In these last few weeks of school, you will be hearing all about our finalized data.

Our findings will be visibly posted around campus, people will be actively talking with you about STARS, people will be interviewing you about your thoughts on Earlham’s approach to sustainability, and the Environmental Colloquium class will be organizing a Move- Out waste-diversion program to reduce the volume of student waste entering the Richmond Municipal Landfill at the end of the year.

Excited? You should be. This is Earlham’s first comprehensive institutional assessment regarding sustainability. Next January, once the assessment is complete, we will know what Earlham’s strengths and weaknesses are and how to move forward in creating a more sustainable community.

This effort will require not just the interest of a single class during one semester, the work of a single sustainability intern over the summer, but of the entire community over the long term, including you.

Think about it. What more could you do?