ESA takes on campus sustainability efforts

In the face of one of the worst droughts on record, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive directive challenging the city to reduce its water use by 20 percent over the next two and a half years. The severity of current environmental issues, both water-related and otherwise, has not escaped the notice of the USC community. On campus, students are working to shift campus culture and university policy to become more sustainability-focused.

The Environmental Student Assembly, which was formed last spring as a division of Program Board, is attempting to give a voice to individuals and groups on campus who are invested in environmental issues. 

ESA Executive Director Shawn Rhoads said that prior to ESA’s formation, there was a disconnect between like-minded environmental groups on campus.

“There were these environmental organizations, but they didn’t know about each other. They didn’t really communicate with each other,” Rhoads said. “Two [organizations] were working on the same campaign at the same time, but they didn’t really know.”

Since its founding, ESA has fostered communication and collaboration between its 15 member organizations that are devoted to various environmental issues and has held several events related to those issues, including film screenings and events featuring speakers such as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and actor Ian Somerhalder. ESA also co-hosted the Homecoming Rally and Carnival earlier this month, during which students powered the stage with bicycles. 

The Office of Sustainability’s Sustainability Program Manager Halli Bovia noted that campus culture regarding sustainability has improved during her three years at USC.

“We’re beginning to see a culture shift with the students, [including] the establishment of the Environmental Student Assembly,” Bovia said. “That’s been great.”

ESA originated in the Office of Sustainability, and the two entities have maintained a close partnership. Bovia highlighted the importance of this relationship, particularly since each can provide specific resources and support to the other.

“It’s so important to support students and their efforts in this area because we will never be able to do enough,” Bovia said. “ESA’s focus is really on environmental events for students. I think that’s fabulous [because the Office of Sustainability doesn’t] have the resources to put on events.”

Despite ESA’s founding and the increase of environmentally focused events, however, USC still seems to lag behind many other campuses in terms of sustainability. 

Daniel Redick, ESA’s external membership director and co-founder of national sustainability nonprofit Green Student Fund, attended two other colleges before transferring to USC and said he noticed a marked difference when he arrived on campus.

“The culture shift away from sustainability on campus when I got to USC was pretty amazing,” Redick said. “My first two colleges, Northern Arizona [University] and Santa Monica College, are very rooted in sustainable agendas and different environmental initiatives, while USC was not so much.”

Both Rhoads and Redick cited lack of support from the administration as a major obstacle to achieving a more sustainable USC.

“Getting USC to actually consider the environmental issues that are prevalent on campus … It definitely hasn’t been easy,” Rhoads said. “Sometimes it’s very hard to get administration on the same page.”

Vice Provost for Student Affairs Ainsley Carry responded to this by saying that Bovia, as well as USC Environmental Health & Safety Executive Director Dr. James Gibson, are two of the university’s administrators who are involved in promoting student sustainability efforts. 

“Over the years, [a sustainability] task force has launched a number of initiatives through student input,” Carry said in an email to the Daily Trojan. “The administration works hard to listen to student input from multiple venues — student government, student organizations, residence life. We appreciate student input and carefully consider ideas when they are brought forth.”

Rhoads specifically emphasized the necessity of greater support from the administration in terms of water conservation and recycling initiatives. He cited the need to decrease water usage in campus fountains and sprinkler systems, as well as the problematic aspects of USC’s current single-stream waste management system, in which all recyclable materials are mixed together instead of sorted by type.

“USC recycles, but it’s all single-stream,” Rhoads said, referring to the fact that the university employs third-party company Athens Services to sort out recyclables from the waste. “When that happens, where’s the conscious effort of USC students actually recycling? There’s no awareness.” 

Rhoads also noted that in single-stream waste management systems like the one USC uses, recyclables are often soiled by trash and are then no longer able to be recycled.

On-campus recycling is one initiative that is at the forefront of environmental efforts at other universities. At the University of California, Los Angeles, for example, there is an approximately one-to-one ratio of trash cans to recycling bins both on campus and in the university’s residential community. 

Kyle Hess, co-chair of UCLA’s largest sustainability organization, E3: Ecology, Economy, Equity, notes that his university’s emphasis on environmental research has enabled more effective sustainability on campus. Hess said UCLA has an initiative to become waste-free by 2020. 

“There was a recycling team that conducted a waste audit on campus to see the recycling habits of students,” Hess said. “Based on their research they designed a plan of where recycling bins should be located on campus … and they also designed a new bin and signage so that it would show people exactly what can be recycled versus what should be trashed or composted.”

Hess said that E3 has recently started an E-waste initiative on campus, providing bins and encouraging students to properly dispose of their electronic waste to make UCLA’s campus even more environmentally friendly. 

UCLA’s sustainability initiatives have received accolades from such entities as the Sierra Club, the Princeton Review and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. 

Though USC might not measure up to other campuses in regards to environmental issues yet, both Rhoads and Redick are optimistic about the future of sustainability on campus. Rhoads said that as the assembly continues to grow, students invested in environmental issues will have more opportunities to affect  change on campus. 

“It’s been very rewarding to have these students in our assembly be extremely passionate about something and ESA being able to support them and serve as their resource,” Rhoads said.

Redick also believes that continued efforts to communicate effectively with university administration can improve sustainability on campus.

“I think showing administration … how much that sustainable culture has been growing is huge because I think the administration is going to want to reflect its students as well as possible,” Redick said.