Green Team
The Green Team is a coalition of faculty, staff and students dedicated to fostering sustainability at Smith by educating and supporting the campus community in efficient use of finite natural resources, attaining the greatest possible efficiencies and preventing pollution. The Green Team works with many areas of Smith's operations, including construction, transportation, purchasing, materials use, energy use and waste management in seeking to transform the college's practices.
Where You Can Find Us
The Green Team meets in the campus center every other week. Please consult the events calendar for date and time. All are welcome to join the team or come to a meeting to propose your ideas to the group.
Initiatives
Recent and continuing Green Team efforts include:
Million Monitor Drive/"Sleep is Good" Competition
The Green Team spearheaded a 2008 campaign to encourage students, faculty and staff to set their
computer so monitors turn off when not in use. Nearly 900 students signed the pledge to reduce
their greenhouse-gas
emissions! A competition between student residential houses for the highest rate of participation
netted pizza parties for the top three houses.
Earth Day Festival
In collaboration with the student chapter of MassPIRG, the Green Team contributed to a celebration of Earth Day, complete with information on reducing individual refrigerators and other types of electricity use.
Campus Education
The Green Team has run a number of awareness campaigns, including placement of a 10' x 10' x
10' black box on the steps of the Campus Center to represent the amount of equivalent carbon
emissions reduced by changing the sleep settings on a single computer. "The Box" was also
used to advertise a presentation of Smith's GHG inventory.
Green Team students conducted a survey about energy use in student rooms and students' willingness to forego use of personal room refrigerators, one of the top three energy users in student rooms. This was the first step in an effort to educate students about the amount of power used by personal appliances.
