Sustainability Day Press Release

Sustainability at the University of Virginia

Contact: Kendall Singleton
Tel: 434.924.5864
Email: kendall.singleton@virginia.edu

UVA TO CELEBRATE NATION-WIDE CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY DAY, OCTOBER 21

As part of a widespread effort to spread sustainability awareness throughout college and university campuses across the country, the University of Virginia will be participating in the 7th annual Campus Sustainability Day on Wednesday, October 21. The focal point of this day is a nationally streamed webcast, “Sustainability Strategies for Vibrant Campus Communities”, hosted by New York Times science reporter Andy Revkin. The webcast will be sponsored on Grounds by U.Va. Community Relations and the Office of the University Architect, and will take place from 1-2:30 in the Newcomb South Meeting room. “Those interested in promoting sustainability are welcome and encouraged to attend,” says U.Va. Sustainability Planner Andrew Greene. A brief informal reception and follow-up discussion will take place in the South Meeting room immediately following the webcast. Please join other sustainably-minded students, faculty and staff in Newcomb to learn what other schools are doing to foster sustainability on their campuses.

Because the University of Virginia already has a significant number of actively engaged community members making substantial strides towards promoting sustainable practices on Grounds, additional U.Va.-specific events are planned for the 21st. In an effort to encourage waste reduction behavior, U.Va. Dining will begin offering a new punch card to reward students for providing their own travel mug when purchasing coffee. A frequent travel mug user will be eligible for two free coffees at any Dining retail location after bringing in his or her reusable mug eight times.

U.Va. Dining will also host a Green Plate Special Theme Meal at Observatory Hill Dining Hall during dinner on October 21. Select items on the menu will celebrate the abundance of Virginia farmers’ agricultural pursuits, as well as the other tenets of the Green Dining Committee’s identified sustainable dining practices: seasonally grown, organically grown and raised, humanely raised, and fairly traded. In tandem with the sustainably-focused meal, students at the dining hall will have the option to sign up to participate in Dining’s recently created reusable to-go container program.

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Sustainability at the University of Virginia is an initiative spanning disciplines and schools with the common goal of uniting the U.Va. community in a genuine and lasting effort to mitigate its environmental impact. Such an effort is, and will continue to be, the product of education and innovative collaboration by the many creative thinkers on Grounds.