Hello NYU Community,
For over a decade, NYU has raised the bar in making our campus and community more sustainable. But we often hear the question: how are we doing?
This month, NYU officially received a Gold rating through the Sustainability Tracking Assessment & Rating System (STARS), conducted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). With more than 900 participants in 40 countries, AASHE’s STARS program is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly reporting comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance. NYU’s STARS Gold score ranks us in the top 30% of certified institutions.
In Fall 2018, a Sustainability Working Group of over 50 students, faculty, and administrators from across NYU’s global network came together to determine meaningful and achievable new sustainability initiatives that NYU could implement in the short term.
It’s no secret Americans love vacations, in 2016 almost 67 million citizens traveled outside the country and 5,877 million gallons were used that year to fuel our international travel frenzy.
We all live and love everything NYC, but sometimes we need to get a breath full of fresh air. Before the fall semester starts and for the sake of saving gas and money, check out some of New York’s vacation hotspots- all accessible by public transport from NYC.
My taxi rolled up to the curb a few buildings away from 83 Quay in Haymarket, Sydney Australia. Still disoriented from the 13 hour and 45 minute flight from SFO, the damp 95 degree heat and the dizzying ride on the left side of the road, I walked into the Urbanest Student Accommodation— an apartment style building for students from US universities like NYU studying abroad as well as students studying at nearby Sydney universities. I was greeted by a very friendly combination of Urbanest and NYU Sydney staff… and all the disposable plastic water bottles my heart desired. Although my reusable NYUGREeN water bottle had only a sip of warm water left in it, I resisted the urge to take the chilled plastic bottles I was offered each time it became obvious that the foreign heat was taking a toll on me.
When I finally got up to my room, I found that there was yet another plastic water bottle sitting on my desk.The mop bucket was the best I could do without a real recycling bin in the kitchen. There was no information about recycling in the building or any signs indicating nearby bins. I found out shortly after that there is in fact a recycling bin in the building, but without any encouragement from the staff or general information about recycling in the building along with the single waste bin in each kitchen, it seems unlikely that recycling is regular behavior at Urbanest. At the Science House, where classes are held, there are clearly marked trash and recycling bins in the Student Center, however, they aren’t advertised during orientation. Read more
