In summer 2024, ISF organized a cross-campus Sustainability Working Group (SWG) to study recent and current sustainability practices and initiatives on campus and identify ways to enhance and improve efforts across campus and further position Purdue as a leader in sustainability among its peers in the Big Ten Academic Alliance and beyond.

In undertaking the work, our team has observed persistent themes critical to supporting participation and engagement by the entire campus community in making Purdue’s campus healthier, resilient and more sustainable. This is a vision that relies on “4 C’s” that can happen on individual, departmental and unit levels: “Commit, Collaborate, Communicate and Calculate.” Sustainability, in this vision, is not the responsibility of one unit, nor is it marked by the achievement of one target. Rather, anyone can commit to improving campus sustainability. Greater success can be reached by collaborating with others. Communicating efforts and opportunities can move us forward. And to demonstrate our progress, we must calculate using agreed upon standards such as those promoted through AASHE’s STARS. By supporting efforts large and small, every single member of the Purdue community can move us forward.

For more information, contact Lynne Dahmen at ldahmen@purdue.edu, Valentina Negri at vnegri@purdue.edu.