A Message from Evergreen's Director of Sustainability

Sustainability: Our Place in History

To support the 6.7 billion people on earth, we are exploiting our natural resources at unsustainable rates. In fact, all of our planet’s life support systems are in decline.  Tropical deforestation is occurring at around one acre per second, marine fisheries are collapsing and all are projected to be depleted by 2050, soil quality is universally diminishing and desertification is spreading at a rate of about 23,000 square miles per year, freshwater supplies and aquifers are being over tapped, entire ecosystems and species are being wiped out, and our energy economy is utterly dependant on finite and polluting fossil fuels.

Despite this overexploitation, half of the human population lives in poverty (on less than $2 per day). And with the recent rise in oil and food prices, billions of people are at further risk. The hope is to reverse this trend and raise the standard of living so that every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and dignified life. This will require the intensified extraction of already stressed resources (unless there is a fundamental shift in the way the developed world lives and operates).  If the developing world suddenly achieved a quality of life equal to U.S. standards, global consumption rates would be the equivalent of 72 billion people.  No one has argued that our world can support those numbers.  The hope and the math simply don't work.

This challenge is made exponentially more difficult because the human population continues to grow. The United Nations estimates that the human population will be 9.2 billion by 2050 or 2.5 billion more people than are alive today. To put this in perspective, this increase is equivalent to the total human population in 1950.

Does humanity have the compassion, determination, and ingenuity to effectively care for our current population? Can our planet – with its diminishing resources – support our current population while welcoming another 2½ billion people? What will be left of our natural world in 2050? How many more ecosystems (and the services they provide) will be lost? What will our quality of life be like in the years ahead? These questions will largely be answered during our lifetime. How these questions are answered will impact every person everywhere. The reason is simple: we live in an interdependent, globally connected world and contemporary environmental and social problems do not exist in isolation.

How the next 40 years plays out will define our place in history. It is society’s ultimate challenge. People who understand sustainability understand our challenge and they work everyday to overcome it.

A Personal Perspective of Sustainability

On a societal level, sustainability is attained when human communities can prosper in harmony with each other and with ecological communities. The result will be a more mature and compassionate human race. In fact I believe that at its core, sustainability is a maturation of the human race – a transformation into something better where environmental stewardship and social consciousness are an inherent part of each of our activities. On an individual level, sustainability is the hope of living a rich and meaningful life but not at the expense (and ideally at the benefit) of other people and the environment.

Applying Sustainability at the Institutional Level

Recognizing our place in history and wanting to live a meaningful life, I accepted the offer to become Evergreen’s first Director of Sustainability. I accepted the position knowing that the Evergreen community is committed to a sustainable future. I want to do my part to help Evergreen become a “laboratory for sustainability” and be a national leader in sustainable thinking and planning. Evergreen can lead higher education and higher education can lead our society to a better more prosperous future.

It is my duty to help build new partnerships, foster collaborative processes, create new opportunities to implement sustainability in our operations and in our classrooms, and facilitate existing efforts all with the goal of advancing sustainability at Evergreen.

As a member of the president’s staff, my overall perspective of sustainability at Evergreen is all encompassing. In doing so, I place special emphasis on three broad thematic areas:

Institutionalizing Sustainability

Environmental stewardship and social responsibility should be evident in our operations, our built environment, in our policies, and most importantly, in our institutional values.

Academic Planning and Student Opportunities

By promoting new opportunities for curricular development and practical learning, Evergreen would move closer towards a comprehensive model of sustainability. This model would foster community relationships, elevate campus spirit, and prepare students for the emerging “green” economy.

Service Center: Regional and National Model

By showcasing and promoting Evergreen’s leadership in sustainable thinking and planning we can increase collaboration and build new partnerships with our neighbors, state government, local municipalities, businesses, non-profit organizations and other institutions of higher education.

Sustainability as a part of our community conversation

To ensure that sustainability is an ongoing part of our campus culture, I participate in many community conversations. Here are a few of the committees and activities that I am a member of:

• Sustainability Council (co-chair)
• Campus Land Use Committee
• Space Management Committee
• Faculty Planning Institutes
• Presidential Staff Meetings
• Summer Institutes
• Clean Energy Committee
• Freshman Orientation
• Print Management Group (coordinator)

Be an active participant

Advancing sustainability at Evergreen does not belong to any one person, it must be a community effort.  I invite you to become familiar with Evergreen's sustainability programs and to participate in community activities.  Lead by example.  "Green" your personal life and be a champion for sustainability in your office or classroom.  The Office of Sustainability is here to help.  Together we can make Evergreen a model for sustainability and help lead society to a better future.

John Pumilio
Director of Sustainability
President's Office
Seminar I, Annex B
Phone: 360.867.6913
Email: sustainabilitydirector@evergreen.edu