Student Sustainability Working Group Connects Students and Staff on Sustainability Initiatives

In collaboration with Sustainable Stanford Partners and Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS), the Office of Sustainability formed a Student Sustainability Working Group (SSWG) in fall 2015 to better support student innovation and collaboration around campus sustainability projects. Students, academic staff, and sustainability staff met three times during the year to share updates, solicit project feedback, and brainstorm partnership opportunities. Each meeting focused on a specific topic and highlighted related efforts on the campus, regional, and global scales. Meeting topics in 2014 were water conservation, environmental justice, and food systems.

At each meeting, student and staff leaders presented their organizations’ initiatives related to the meeting topic. Participants then discussed how groups could better work together in these areas. As a result of these discussions, SSS began supporting Residential & Dining Enterprises’ food donation program and landscape irrigation project. Students were also invited to audit graduate-level courses being offered by Stanford Law faculty member Michelle Anderson, who presented at the January meeting on her work in environmental justice.