You know what’s cool? Not having to worry about gas money. You know what else is cool? Not paying a costly electric bill every month. Perhaps even cooler still is not having to pay money to consume foods that are ridden with artificial ingredients that are harmful to the body.
In a word, sustainability is cool. And on Oct. 22, apparently marking Earth Day’s half-birthday, the Sustainability Day Celebration was in full swing across campuses including UT.
From noon until 4 p.m., the celebration filled the HSS Amphitheater, with a wide variety of organizations on site including Beardsley Community Farm, General Motors, Tennessee Clean Water Network, Dale’s Fried Pies and Good Golly Tamale to name a few.
Preston Jacobsen, sustainability manager for UT, was pleased with last Thursday’s event and how it got everyone engaged in the topic of sustainability.
“It’s a reminder of what we’re doing here on campus, ways to get involved, and it allows the community to kind of come in as well,” Jacobsen said. “And it’s also a way to promote clubs, too, like SPEAK and Eco-Vols.”
One such community member and UT alumnus, Kelli Kaiser, was in attendance representing her company Ecotopia — a locally based boutique that carries a wide variety of eco-friendly merchandise.
“Today was fantastic,” Kaiser said. “It was really nice being back here. It’s much different than when I was in school. There weren’t available recycling containers, and there were very few bike racks. So, I’m looking around and noticing ‘Oh man, they’ve made so many improvements that make it convenient for people to be eco-friendly.’”
Aside from Kaiser and some of the other companies and organizations, a good number of students were in attendance for the event.
Among those students was Lucas Deliberador, senior in industrial engineering. For him, the ideas and practices of sustainability are relatively new.
“Before I started studying engineering, I didn’t think about (sustainability) so much,” Deliberador said. “I’m from Brazil, and I had some classes in my major about the environment, so when I started studying that I started thinking more about it.”
But whether students are well-established in sustainable practices or just beginning to learn, Jacobsen says it doesn’t matter.
“Coming out to an event like this, you find camaraderie,” Jacobsen said.
He also spoke of ways for newbies to ease into a more sustainable lifestyle.
“Find ways that you can make whatever practice that you deem sustainable and/or know to be sustainable habitual,” Jacobsen said. “Then you’re more likely to pass that on to someone else.”
“Recycling is probably the easiest,” he added. “Turn off your lights, recycle, email us and engage us on questions of how to participate, ride the T — if you will — it goes downtown with the trolley. So there are ways to be more sustainable than most because we’re an urban campus.”
Jacobsen went on to explain that sustainability really is not a sacrifice, something his office tries to communicate to students, and that this is a practice that UT does pretty well.
“Obviously, we’re not California, we’re not Vermont, but East Tennessee is still receptive, and we are a leader in a lot of things,” Jacobsen said. “We’re number two in the nation for game day recycling, number 11 in the nation for green energy purchases and we rank high among all other peer institutions at this scale.”
And on the topic of numbers, Jacobsen wanted to ensure students are aware that they each pay a green fee that amounts to a total of $740,000 per year.
“So that’s your money to spend, and there’s a green fee committee, so I hope students are aware of that,” he said. “If you want to do a proposal or research, or if you want to have more bottle filling stations on campus or greener cars, you let us know and we’ll find ways to spend that money in an appropriate manner.”
So in the six months until the Earth Day celebration, be sure to connect with the Office of Sustainability and learn how you can live a more sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle.
UT's Office of Sustainability holds the Sustainability Day Celebration 2015.
