Campus Sustainability Week

Campus Sustainability Week: October 14-23, 2011

Friday, October 14th kicks off this year’s seventh annual GVSU Campus Sustainability Week (CSW). We invite all Grand Valley students, faculty, staff and community members to take part in a week of presentations, events, discussions, and challenges revolving around the topic of sustainability.

While we will spend this week engaged in sustainability education and practices, CSW is about more than being sustainable for one week of the year. It’s more than sitting in on presentations, shopping at the farmer’s market, and carpooling for a few days. It’s more like a celebration… and a challenge, calling you to consider the way you live your life and suggesting that maybe making lasting decisions to live more environmentally, socially, and fiscally sustainable is the way to living a happier, more satisfying life.

  

Check Out Photos from
CSW on our Flickr Page!

We invite you to celebrate with those who are committed to creating a more sustainable world and the projects they are a part of. Attend presentations and film showings to learn more about the issues, and then voice your opinions and ideas as we discuss possible solutions as a community.

Finally, we would like to challenge you—to join us in a week of no impact.
       

No Impact Experiment

The No Impact Experiment, this year’s CSW theme, is the result of a personal investigation conducted by Colin Beavan (No Impact Man) to see if living a zero-impact lifestyle could actually lead to a happier life. Beavan’s documented experience  (via blog, book, and film) garnered much success and theorized that individual action could inspire both cultural change and political engagement.

Each day of No Impact Week will focus on a specific aspect of life (food, transportation, etc.) and will challenge you to reduce your own impact in that area. The challenge is not about giving up creature comforts, but rather to see if the “modern conveniences” we take for granted actually make us happier or if they just suck up our time and money.

Check out the schedule of events below and then register for CSW’s No Impact Experiment. Though you can still participate in activities without signing up, official participants will receive:

  • No Impact Experiment manual
  • GVSU Addendum with schedule of events for the week and resources
  • Pre and post experiment survey

We also invite you to join in the community of like-minded individuals and share your celebrations and challenges of the week on our GVSU No Impact Week Facebook page. Perhaps at the end of the week you’ll find that it’s more like a Celebrate, Challenge, Celebrate thing—a pattern that we hope will continue into the rest of your life.

  

Schedule of Events