Having launched its new website in August, Georgetown Environmental Leaders, a partnership between multiple on-campus environmental groups, will host a summit on Sept. 22 with the aim of strengthening cooperation between on-campus environment clubs.
GEL is spearheaded by GUSA and the Center for the Environment, a partnership of students and university staff.
“It’s not really a discrete initiative, so to speak. [Rather], it is a broader effort to network people,” said Gabe Pincus (SFS ’14), GUSA Secretary of Sustainability.
The founding principle and continued purpose of GEL has been to foster collaboration through a structured network. Many students involved in environmental activities on campus observed that prior to last year, little cooperation occurred between clubs that sometimes shared similar projects.
“You had money that was getting spent on overlapping things, and events that could happen did not happen because certain groups didn’t have enough people, certain groups didn’t have enough funds, and things like that,” said Alex Zajac (COL ’15), intern at the Center for the Environment.
Pincus added that student awareness was also a problem. “I think for a freshman who wants to get involved, it should be clear where the various groups are and what their relationship is to one another,” Pincus said.
GEL has received a positive reception from students involved in on-campus environmental initiatives and sustainability thus far.
“Sustainability is all about innovative and creative thinking, and GEL really allows you to crowdsource ideas, and get great input from other people who are really passionate about these issues,” said Greg Miller (SFS ’14), a sustainability research fellow under a university-sponsored grant.
Miller is involved with launching GU Bike Share, a project he hopes will be strengthened by GEL. This bike sharing initiative would recycle and rent bicycles that have been reclaimed from DPS, contributing to lowering Georgetown’s total waste as well as providing thrifty transportation options to students.
“There’s no parent organization that owns [GU Bike Share] right now,” said Miller. “From the standpoint of GEL, it’s very useful for us to get buy-in into this project and see if any of these organizations are interested in adopting it and making sure it’s sustainable and it grows.”
So far, administrators have welcomed the chance to cooperate with students on environmental issues.
“With the recent launch of the formal Office of Sustainability, I am looking forward to learning about any ideas that might emerge from this upcoming discussion to help inform how the office can continue to serve as a campus resource on this topic,” wrote Audrey Stewart, director of the Office of Sustainability in an email to the Voice.
