Student creates environmentally-focused business club


When Randy Yue, a senior majoring in business administration, transferred to USC as a junior in 2017, he said he was shocked that the University did not have an environmentally-conscious business club for undergraduates.

Members of The Sustainability Project have focused on promoting their mission by forming a presence online and on social media and participating in the involvement fair. Photo courtesy of Randy Yue.

“I was surprised there wasn’t one, so I took it into my own hands to make it happen,” Yue said.

Established last October, The Sustainability Project aims to inspire future entrepreneurs on campus to integrate environmental science and conservation efforts into their businesses. Slated to officially launch this semester, the club will work toward three objectives: promoting more environmentally conscious projects and policies on campus, educating other students about green businesses and connecting people through social activities.

“No matter where in business you are, you can always be mindful of your consumption,” Yue said. “Even if you’re not in renewable energy, you can always do something to lessen your impact. If you’re in an office, you can go paperless. If you’re in a restaurant, you could not serve certain species of fish that may be endangered.”

According to Yue, the club’s primary goal stems from the need to educate current business majors about sustainability and make them more aware that part of their corporate responsibility is to reduce their carbon footprint.

“One of my goals is to leave USC better off than when I first came here, and this is one way I can do that,” Yue said. “I think that starting this up and connecting these people will make our community stronger.”

Chief marketing officer Sydney Nguyen, a junior majoring in business administration, first developed an interest in sustainability in her WRIT 340 class, which centered on corporate social responsibility. For one paper, Nguyen wrote about Tiffany & Co.’s impact on developing countries through mining and found that the company primarily mined from recycled sources and sourced from countries participating in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which guaranteed that diamonds in the company’s jewelry were “conflict-free.”

“Seeing how [Tiffany & Co.] has gone from where they were before to where they are now through the different changes that they’ve made made me really want to go on with TSP and help Randy make The Sustainability Project a strong club within USC,” Nguyen said.

Once Yue assembled a six-person leadership team from his abridged accounting class in October, he and his fellow teammates worked on building the club from the ground up to establish its presence on campus.

“In my eyes, you need to put some effort in, especially at the Involvement Fair,” Yue said. “The past month or two have been focused on getting the website up, getting our social media all nice and tidy and now we’re in the planning stage … and getting ready to pull out this bad boy.”

The semester will kick off with a presentation from Marshall School of Business professor of management and organization Paul Adler, the club’s advisor, on Feb. 6. Adler will be the first of a series of guest speakers the club will be hosting throughout the semester. Each speaker will elaborate on how they incorporated sustainability into their business.

According to the group’s director of advocacy Angel Yin, a senior majoring in environmental studies, the club will be visiting Catalina Island and the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, where students can learn more about the environment and sustainability.

There are also plans to participate in beach cleanups and tour companies where people in the business field can teach members how they can reduce their impact on the environment.

“Often times, all of the other environmental clubs are for the environment, but here we are really trying to really create an audience within the Marshall community,” Yin said. “They’re probably not as sustainably conscious as all of the other majors are, and definitely sustainability consulting is an up and coming field, so we just want to provide more insight into what all that means.”

Though primarily composed of business students, the club is open to all majors and both undergraduate and graduate students. The club hopes to have a ripple effect when its members graduate and carry environmental ideals with them into their trades. They believe this will lead to further advocacy and progress.

“Right now, with all the different policies changing within the government and the environment itself changing, I feel like it’s a really important time to begin a club that really focuses on this,” Nguyen said. “Especially with green technology and green businesses occurring, we just want to expand people’s mind and make them understand that sustainability can be noticed in every single industry, not just what it was founded upon.”