Join SDSU’s Green Lunch Group to Promote Sustainability

Do you want to help make SDSU more sustainable? Get involved by joining the Green Lunch Group. This organization of students, faculty and staff seeks to further sustainable practices and policies on campus. During bi-monthly meetings members share information about sustainability projects on campus, discuss opportunities for new projects and suggest improvements to campus policies. To get more information please email Lisa Wortman at lwortman@mail.sdsu.edu.

Sustainability is a word you have probably begun to hear more frequently in the media and around campus over the past year, but what does sustainability actually mean? Most students would say it involves issues like recycling or improving the environment, but sustainability goes beyond simply recycling soda cans and planting trees. While there is no universal definition, the broad definition offered by the United Nations focuses on meeting the needs of humans and the non-human world in the present, without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their needs. [1]

In practice, sustainability can apply to economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. [2] For instance, “sustainable building” would be developing structures that would last forever and have minor impact of the natural surroundings, and “sustainable community” strives for a clean, safe, and strong community that will improve the quality of life. Both of which ensure that future generations will be able to thrive in a world of endless opportunities and sustainable practice.

1. United Nations. 1987. "Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development." General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987. Retrieved: 2007-04-12

2. Bridge, C. "Universal design impacts housing sustainability: Cost-benefit evidence." The University of Sydney, Faculty of Health Sciences. Retrieved on: July 26, 2007.