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Syracuse University’s Sustainability Oversight Council will take a more “holistic look” at the progress of the university’s updated sustainability goals, said Olivia Curreri, vice president of university affairs of SU’s Student Association.

Over a year ago, SA released its 2022 Sustainability Report — a document that led to the university updating its Climate Action Plan later that year. Since then, SA has continued to work closely with the council to ensure the university is “staying on track” with the goals, Curreri said.

Curreri said the council, which consists of herself, Board of Trustees member Kenneth Pontarelli, Environmental Engineering Professor Charles Driscoll and Chancellor Kent Syverud, will hold its first meeting “in the coming weeks,” where it will audit SU’s adherence to its ongoing Climate Action Plan. SA will also continue meeting with the office on a bi-weekly basis.

Curreri, who was one of the authors of the initial report, could not confirm whether the university was staying on track with these initiatives but said she was “proud” of the SU administration for upholding these goals.

“I’ve been really happy and empowered as a student leader to see how much the university cares about student voices,” Curreri said. “It’s been really exciting to see my own climate policies implemented this year.”

On Dec. 15, 2022, SA’s 66th Session released its Sustainability Report, which presented recommended amendments — such as a plan to expedite its carbon neutrality goals, push for a single-use plastics phaseout plan and establish a council featuring administrative and student voices — to its 2009 Climate Action Plan. Over the next four months, SA worked with administrators to update the university’s plan, which 93% of voting students supported in SA’s spring 2023 election.

SA and SU released the modified version of the plan in April 2023, which incorporated several of the changes suggested in the report. Since then, SA representatives have met regularly with the university’s Sustainability Management Office.

SA representatives collect student feedback weekly to bring to the office through its Sustainability Forum — a group of students that collects student feedback and holds several advocacy initiatives.

Yasmin Nayrouz, vice president of SA, said the forum originally developed after receiving an influx of feedback suggesting students wanted to get more involved with sustainability initiatives. The forum, which is led by SA but accepts all SU and SUNY ESF students, also worked closely with SUNY ESF’s Mighty Oak Student Assembly to develop the report.

“We created the Sustainability Forum to encourage students who are also outside of Student Association but are still passionate about sustainability,” Nayrouz said.

Curreri and other SA leaders said the university has taken several steps over the past years to enforce these goals, such as the introduction of biodegradable silverware packets in Schine Student Center and several on-campus dining halls. She also said the university now offers more “peer-to-peer sustainability education” opportunities.

While SA leaders said they were generally satisfied with SU’s response, the association will continue to bring student concerns regarding sustainability to administrators, Eniola Festus, one of SA’s co-directors of sustainability, said. She believes the university has not given students a strict timeline for how it plans to reinforce these goals.

Festus, whose position within SA is to meet with administrators, said she wished the university had defined its goals more “explicitly,” specifically those related to its plastics phaseout plan.

“There’s still some stuff that needs to be defined explicitly,” Festus said, referencing the plan’s verbiage. “One of the parts of the sustainability plan was to drastically reduce plastics, but the university hasn’t put out an explicit definition as to what it actually means.”

In its April 2023 news release, SU said its new Climate Action plan will establish a “(commitment) to dramatically reduce single-use plastics by the 2027-28 academic year through a phased approach.”

Festus said she believes the university needs to add more details to its goals to make “substantial progress” on improving sustainability.

SA has also introduced several internal initiatives to promote sustainability within the organization. In the fall semester, SA introduced and passed a bill that created its own Green Purchasing Guide — a list of sustainable vendors for assembly members to consult when drafting legislation based on one written by MOSA.

Curreri, Festus and Nayrouz all said SA plans to introduce more sustainability-based initiatives and events in the spring semester. More information is to come in the following weeks, they said.

“A lot of this past year has really been just a lot of development of the foundation — creating groups, committees, people and general ideas,” Nayrouz said. “We’re going to be seeing ideas come to fruition.”

Published on January 21, 2024 at 11:11 pm

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu