Students for Sustainability is a voluntary student group which aims to create a general awareness in and around the East Stroudsburg University campus about the significant sustainability problems, and works towards to instill necessary attitudes, especially within the student body, to attain a more sustainable campus. Students for Sustainability primarily plan to work on the following issues:
Alternative Energy Sources: While energy surrounds us in all aspects of life, the ability to harness it and use it for constructive ends as economically as possible is the challenge before mankind. Alternative energy refers to energy sources which are not based on the burning of fossil fuels or the splitting of atoms. The renewed interest in this field of study comes from the undesirable effects of pollution (as witnessed today) both from burning fossil fuels and from nuclear waste byproducts. Fortunately there are many means of harnessing energy which have less damaging impacts on our environment.
Reducing Carbon Footprint: A carbon footprint is the measure of the amount of carbon dioxide (the major man-made global warming greenhouse gas) that goes into the atmosphere as you go about your daily life. Almost everything you do affects it: turning on a coffee maker, driving a car, buying food, taking a ride on a passenger jet or simply sending an email.
Zero Waste: Zero waste suggests that the entire concept of waste should be eliminated. Instead, waste should be thought of as a "residual product" or simply a "potential resource" to counter our basic acceptance of waste as a normal course of events. Opportunities such as reduced costs, increased profits, and reduced environmental impacts are found when returning these "residual products" or "resources" as food to either natural and industrial systems. This may involve redesigning both products and processes in order to eliminate hazardous properties that make them unusable and unmanageable in quantities that overburden both industry and the environment.
Ecological Conservation: In order to improve the environmental quality, it is not only needed to conduct pollution control around the city urban itself, but also needed to strengthen the ecological conservation and construction at city-wide and regional level. The long-term objective for a permanent improvement of the urban environment needs a healthy regional ecological system.