The life paths of five women from four different countries overlapped last year at UPEACE while pursuing their Master's degree in Environment, Development and Peace. Yumiko (Japan), Aleksandra (Netherlands), Patricia (Puerto Rico), Heleen (Netherlands) and Caroline (United States), started as classmates but quickly became the dream team behind the student-lead initiative UPEACE Green Office.
The mission of the UPEACE Green Office is to empower students and staff to act upon sustainability by providing useful resources and acting as a platform to connect all those sharing the same interest and passion about environmental topics.
THEIR STORY
Frustration turned into action.
Aleksandra had previous experience working on these topics in an academic institution as part of the Leiden University Green Office team during her time there, and was motivated to set up an environmental committee at UPEACE with a more medium and long-term mission. She and fellow Green Office member Yumiko started noticing the amount of food wasted as part of daily campus life, as well as the lack of existing initiatives to tackle the issue. Frustrated, they decided to do something about it by using their knowledge and experience to collaborate with UPEACE authorities to increase sustainability practices on campus.
The first phase consisted of writing a proposal to present to the Administration. The challenge of this proposal was that it sought to make the UPEACE Green Office a permanent initiative that would transcend those who started the project, making it sustainable through the years and moving from generation to generation. They wanted it to be more than a committee; they wanted to have it institutionalized and integrated as a part of the Operations Department.
Time to get a team and start moving!
The Green Office team recruited highly-motivated students that could take on the different roles needed to launch this project, including outreach & engagements, operations, communications, strategy & evaluation, design, and of course a team leader, all willing to work together and help each other out. Within a year, this is what they achieved:
Increased awareness on environmental issues around campus
Food waste among the UPEACE Community: In addition to other environmental issues tackled by the UPEACE Green Office – including Single Use Plastic and Renewable Energy – the Green Office led a Sustainable Food Consumption Campaign. They began by measuring the amount of food waste in the cafeteria and proceeded to educate the UPEACE Community on the topic from a global and local perspective. And thus, a new challenge arose: What can we do with all this waste? The answer: having a biodigestor on campus would create a beautiful closed loop for food waste. And so, a fundraising campaign was launched to raise the money for the UPEACE Biodigestor, which will be operational in September 2019.
For those of you not familiar with this concept, a biodigestor consists on a “mechanical-stomach” fed with organic material, which is broken down (decomposed) by microorganisms in an oxygen-free environment to produce a renewable energy called biogas. This biogas can then be used for cooking in the cafeteria´s kitchen.
Look for collaborations, get inspired and inspire others. Through social media, the team motivated the discussion around sustainability, which quickly evolved into people sharing ideas and experiences, becoming better-informed consumers, and even organizing organic farmers’ markets on campus to promote a more sustainable UPEACE experience. The Green Office now provides a greatly-needed platform, which activates the community to act upon environmental and social sustainability.
Institutional Sustainability Report: In order to create a solid action plan, the team needed to first understand where UPEACE was standing in terms of sustainability, both socially and environmentally. In close collaboration with the Department of Operations, they mapped environmental efforts already happening on campus, as well as those areas in which the University requires a greater push. They are currently working on their first Sustainability Report, which will include all collected data, experiences, and lessons learned throughout this first year. The Sustainability Report aims also to increase transparency amongst the stakeholders, general public, and others to help inspire other initiatives toward social and environmental sustainability.
In addition to being a lot of work for the founders of the UPEACE Green Office movement, this experience has served as an opportunity for great personal growth. In their own words:
“It is a self-realizing platform. UPEACE Green Office gave me an opportunity to continuously challenge myself to shorten the distance between my beliefs/values and my actions. Realizing and accepting is an important first enormous step; thinking of a way to improve comes next; and putting these ideas into practice and maintaining them is the third step, which is certainly challenging yet rewarding.” - Yumiko
“It is a moment of self-reflection for the whole UPEACE Community: about how we all need to work on translating our environmental ideals into practical realities by our personal and collective behavior. I really like the chance to inspire people to act upon sustainability, show them this is possible at UPEACE if we put our positive forces together and motivate each other.” - Aleksandra
“An opportunity to be able to produce some change, it’s been a little experiment, a lot of “firsts” for us here at the Green Office. I feel like I am being part of a little movement that’s starting here at UPEACE.” - Patricia
“A common emotion in the environment programme is “how are we going to solve all these environmental issues we are facing?” and I do really feel that Green Office allows me to do something and feel empowered myself. Every day I am literally learning a new skill or a new way of doing things from an environmental perspective.” - Heleen
“Being part of the green office means learning can be done through doing as well as in the classroom. It demonstrates the campus culture is built largely by the student body and we wanted ours to be focused on meaningful environmental impact.” - Carolyn
We are looking forward to seeing how the Green Office continues to shape our campus and community in the near future, and are incredibly grateful for the efforts of these four amazing #UPEACERS in helping to bring about this initiative. Keep up the great work!