The Eco-Reps organization on campus aims to promote sustainable living within the Furman Community. Just recently, the organization launched a new survey called the Green Living Certification that ranks students based on their current sustainability efforts and hopes to encourage them to live more environmentally conscious lifestyles.
The goal of the survey is to create friendly competition amongst friends and within the larger campus community to promote sustainability. Students who participate in the survey will obtain a ranking of green, bronze, silver, gold, or platinum and will receive a sticker that corresponds to their rank. Throughout the year, Furman Eco-Reps will be hosting programs to help students learn how to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, and hopefully raise their Green Living Certification rank.
Sophomore Chloe Sandifer-Stech, who worked closely with the Shi Center as the Eco-Reps fellow during the 2019-2020 academic year, first came up with the idea for the survey after learning that Bowdoin College had a similar program in place. Through the new program, Sandifer-Stech hopes that “students will be encouraged and know that it’s not so hard to make little changes like eating more plant based or washing your clothes on a lower heat setting.” Such small changes are predominantly what the Eco-Reps organization will be focusing on with students throughout the year. For instance, Eco-Reps is in the process of passing out residential compost bins to students who signed up for them. If you are interested in composting, see the Eco-Reps’ Instagram bio.
Whenever environmentalism is discussed, the question of why we as students should care about living sustainably arises. What difference does recycling make when corporations produce more waste than any one of us could? Why care about the earth when there are so many other issues in the world? Current Eco-Reps fellow Caroline Vickery voiced, “I think every individual has an obligation to the planet and to future generations to care about the impact that we’re having. Personally, the thought of how I’m living impacting future generations–my lifestyle making their life worse–is a burden that I don’t want to have to carry.” Sandifer-Stech shared this sentiment, adding, “I think if the world is going to pieces, then what else matters. If we can’t protect the foundation that is our planet, how can we be concerned about other matters at all? It just puts it all into perspective”
If you want to take the survey, the link is in the bio on the furman_ecoreps instagram page.
