Well, here we are. This semester - undoubtedly one of the most unusual semesters in the history of Williams College - is nearly in the books. I hope you and your families are safe, healthy, and finding joy where you can.
Sustainability at the college is an ever-moving target. Here are two examples: 1) Back in 2007, the college set its first emissions goals, and by 2014, those seemed woefully inadequate. Subsequently, we set new emissions goals, and now that those have come due, we’re in the process of setting a third round of goals, each increasing the college’s push to be more sustainable and do our small part to mitigate climate change. 2) The collection and donation of unwanted student items goes back decades; it started with clothes and then expanded beyond that. The Chaplains office was involved with these organizing efforts and then around 2008, it officially began the Give It Up! Program, which pairs donations benefiting charity with reuse and diverting items from the waste stream and the incinerator. The program, which is now managed by CliA, has had real and ever-increasing success and yet, CLiA and the Zilkha Center both recognize that the program could collect, divert, and donate even more items to give them a second life with new owners.
While sustainability is an ever-moving target, COVID has, of course, altered the playing field. Waste has increased this fall through necessary health and safety measures, meals provided to quarantined students, and state regulations regarding restrictions around self-service stations in dining halls. On the other hand, college transportation emissions have bottomed out with the restrictions around business travel while we all have had to familiarize ourselves with a handle of video conference platforms in order to find alternatives for in-person meetings and conferences.
I hope you’ll read below to learn about how COVID impacted college emissions in the 2020 fiscal year, what our hard-working interns have been up to, about the electric vehicle charging stations on campus, and much more.
Hope you all enjoy the upcoming break. We’ll see you on zoom and then hopefully back here again in the spring.
Best,
Mike
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