"Generation E": Reporting Campus Sustainability Leadership For The Next Generation

National Wildlife Federation has released its new study, Generation E: Students Leading for a Sustainable, Clean Energy Future, which highlights the unique and critical role college students play in reforming sustainability programs that lower their campus' carbon footprint.

 

Published just weeks before major international climate negotiations kick off in Copenhagen, Generation E is a timely exploration of how young people in college today are responding to the challenge of climate change and the need to shift to a sustainable, clean energy future. The report highlights 165 campus examples in 46 states, covering 35 categories of creative student effort.

 

"Generation E" stands for the three "E's" of sustainability: ecology, sustainable economics, and social equity," said Julian Keniry, senior director of Campus and Community Leadership for National Wildlife Federation. "It also stands for a tremendous amount of energy and excitement on college campuses today. The values of sustainability define and unite the current generation like no other issue of our time."

 

An executive summary and the full Generation E report, including a list of 165 highlighted schools, are available online atwww.nwf.org/GenE. Since its launch in 1989, National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology Program has worked with the college campus community (students, faculty, administrators and staff) to promote sustainability and ecological stewardship on campuses and beyond.

 

Campuses featured in Generation E are encouraged to enter NWF's Chill Out national competition this fall. Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming is a competition that rewards and recognizes all the cool things campuses are doing to reduce the impacts of global warming. To enter, students, faculty and staff need to submit a two-minute video that shows how their college or university is working to reduce global warming pollution. Entry forms are at campus chillout.