August 3, 2022Ramapo Green Welcomes you to Fall 2022...Join us...!

Whether you are new to Ramapo College, or returning after the morass that is the past few years, we want you to know that we are back.

Whatever your core interests, your Major, or your Career Objectives,
the way we define sustainability,
we will always have something substantial to add to your life.

Please join Ramapo Green at these two upcoming  opening events, as we introduce ALL students to the diverse set of sustainability club opportunities available on campus.

Whether you care about people, the planet, or prosperity, we embrace your perspective and add to it.

Monday, August 29th

Choose Your Own Adventure

• Two sessions: 5:30 pm-6:00 pm and 6:10 pm-6:40 pm
  
• Location: A-221, and on-line (ask for details)

Come meet with:

• 1-STEP – Students Together for Environmental Progress
• Sunrise – The RCNJ Hub for Climate Activism
• Enactus – The Club for Entrepreneurial Action
• Birding Club
• Beekeeping Club
• Garden Club

Wednesday, August 31st

Student Involvement Fair and
Global Opportunities Fair “Arch Event”

• Time: 1:00pm-3:00pm
  
• Location: Grove

Come explore ALL the clubs, organizations AND study abroad programs that Ramapo College has to offer.

 

 

Categories: Sustainability

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March 22, 2021Arbor Day Foundation Honors Ramapo College of New Jersey with 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education® Recognition

Lincoln, Neb. (March 22, 2021) – Ramapo College of New Jersey was honored with 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education^® recognition by the Arbor Day Foundation for its commitment to effective urban forest management.

“Tree Campuses and their students set examples for not only their student bodies but the surrounding communities showcasing how trees create a healthier environment,” said Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation. “Because of Ramapo College’s participation, air will be purer, water cleaner and students and faculty will be surrounded by the shade and beauty trees provide.”

The Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. Ramapo College achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus Higher Education’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project. Currently there are 403 campuses across the United States with this recognition.

The Arbor Day Foundation has helped campuses throughout the country plant thousands of trees, and Tree Campus Higher Education colleges and universities invested more than $51 million in campus forest management last year. This work directly supports the Arbor Day Foundation’s Time for Trees initiative — an unprecedented effort to plant 100 million trees in forests and communities and inspire 5 million tree planters by 2022. Last year, Tree Campus Higher Education schools have collectively planted 39,178 trees and engaged 81,535 tree planters — helping us work toward these critical goals.

More information about the program is available at treecampushighered.org.

About the Arbor Day Foundation: The Arbor Day Foundation is a million-member nonprofit conservation and education organization with the mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. More information is available at arborday.org.

Tree Campus Plan (PDF)

Categories: campus sustainability, Sustainability

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March 20, 2021SGA Senate Unanimously Passes Divestment Task Force Bill

By Ben Hopper

A new bill to create a divestment task force was passed by the Ramapo Student Government Association (SGA) on Monday, March 15. This bill, proposed by Secretary of Sustainability Zoë Tucker-Borrut and introduced by Senate Vice President Nicholas Bykov, passed unanimously with a vote of 17-0-0 in favor of it.

Divestment is the act of shifting investments from going towards fossil fuels to being put towards more environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives instead. Divestment brings a number of benefits with it including working to combat climate change through eliminating the use of fossil fuels. Along with its environmentally conscious benefits divestment has been shown to not bring any negative financial side effects with it.

In Tucker-Borrut’s presentation for divestment she used a quote from environmentalist Bill McKibben to illustrate the importance of college’s getting involved with divestment, “If their college’s endowment is invested in fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee that they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree.”

As well Bykov has made clear the importance of divestment for colleges and Ramapo specifically saying, “As the Climate Crisis continues to worsen, it is becoming more and more important that Colleges and Universities divest their fundings out of companies with ties to fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will only become more risky investments as time passes, while the world looks to green energy and sustainable initiatives as the future. Divestment is especially important for Ramapo College, as it would illustrate the College’s commitment to sustainability as is expressed in our mission statement”

The divestment task force will be united by a singular goal that being to divest the fund of the Ramapo College Foundation shifting these investments away from fossil fuels. As well the divestment task force will work to create an investment strategy in one year in order to present it to the Board of Governors. The bill suggests that this investment strategy will work to be more financially beneficial than the investment strategy currently being considered by the board of directors.

The divestment task force will be formed after Summer and will hold meetings during both the Fall and Spring semesters.

bhopper@ramapo.edu

Categories: Sustainability

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November 24, 2020Consider a Sustainable Approach to Gifting this Year

Read this article on The Ramapo News

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The holiday season: gift-giving, gift-receiving — all in gift wrapping. Though many may not realize it, December is a time of boundless waste creation, all of which ends up in landfills to start off the new year.

According to Stanford, Americans create 25% more trash during the holiday season than any other time of the year. That’s 25 million tons of garbage in just a month. All this waste is easily avoidable, too, with just a few simple changes and perhaps a few larger ones if you’re up for the cause.

Less wrapping

Wrapping paper, bows and ribbon all look wonderful when they’re sitting next to the tree, but after it’s all been ripped open they go straight into the garbage. Lowering your waste doesn’t mean nothing can be wrapped, though.

One way to ditch the paper is to package gifts in reusable boxes, bags or tins. These can be used year after year, so they aren’t wasteful, but if you really love to wrap you still have options. Choosing to use recycled paper gift wrap, or pages from your local newspaper can make creative, pretty presents.

Purchasing local

Black Friday online deals may be hard to resist, but the environmental benefit is worth it. Companies like Amazon, Walmart and Target will use tons of fuel and energy to ship individual items all month.

When you shop locally, you avoid all the packaging of online orders. You also may be able to find more unique items in your local shops than you can at big chains, with the extra holiday joy of knowing you’re supporting a small business!

Low waste gift items

If you’re looking to have a zero-waste (or lower than usual) gift exchange, the best thing you can do is purchase sustainable, low waste gift items. If your friends and family are looking to create less waste year round, this is the perfect time to spoil them with sustainable items!

No matter what the person your shopping for is into, the Zero Waste Store is a hub for plastic-free, environmentally friendly gifts. The Package Free Shop is another online store which promises zero waste shipping and has bundles for all sustainable needs.

Most of the time, the only thing between you and a low-waste gift is a bit of research. Sustainable, independent businesses are more popular than ever, so even the most niche interests likely have a sustainable, unique option available.

While giving back to family and friends for the love they show us all year is important, giving back to the earth in your choices this season makes the most wonderful time of the year just a bit more wonderful.

 

Written by Tori D’Amico (vdamico@ramapo.edu) on November 24, 2020

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Categories: Sustainability

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October 14, 2020Potter Library Takes Sustainable Initiative in Eliminating Plastic Bags

Read this Article on The Ramapo News

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Social distancing on campus has required many different resources to get creative with their methods of connecting with Ramapo students. Being one of the biggest assets to any student, the temporary George T. Potter Library made sure books were accessible.

They promoted their new access on Instagram, with a photo of books bagged and ready for pick up. This presentation did not sit well with sustainability activists from Ramapo.

Comments soon flooded in asking about the necessity of using plastic bags. Students commented that surface contact has been disproven as a major spread of the virus, and therefore single use plastic is not needed.

Better sustainable practices are a prominent cause on Ramapo’s campus. Ramapo Green, the overarching organization of all sustainable clubs on campus, has been pushing for a variety of different improvements, including severely limiting the presence of single-use plastics.

Plastic shopping bags are a long time enemy of nature-lovers. Whether they’re filling up landfills or being mistaken for jellyfish, their role in the ecosystem is no good.

The library heard the students, commenting back to invite collaboration between the students and future endeavors. Change was made quickly, and the original post has since been deleted.

In their new post, the library wrote “Curbside pickup is a great way to still check out library materials,” and added, “Please bring your own bag, or we have some if you need one.” The books in this photo are posed in stacks, out in the sun, ready to be picked up plastic free.

“Thank you for taking action on combating plastic pollution,” commented student Patrick Monahan. “Every step counts!”

Change happens quickly when students take initiative. The same students who asked for change filled the new comments section with thanks and emoji hearts, seeing their efforts turn into actions.

 

Written by Tori D’Amico (vdamico@ramapo.edu) on October 14, 2020

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Categories: Sustainability

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October 10, 2020SGA Sustainability Committee Event Focuses on Local Indigenous People

Read this article on The Ramapo News

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On Oct. 6, the Student Government Association’s Sustainability Committee hosted a conversation open to all on “Indigenous Peoples & Environmental Destruction.” Zoë Tucker-Borrut, the chair of the committee, moderated the event.

The guest speaker, Owl of the Munsee Tribe, began with a meditative prayer thanking the Great Spirit for creation. He compared his beliefs with Christian and Semitic theology, and showed overlap in the physics formula E=mc². After all, most religions agree on the world being alive with an energy or spirit beyond human comprehension.

Owl showed the role this spiritual concept plays in science by citing Dr. James Lovelock’s book “Gaia,” which hypothesized interdependence between life and the Earth System, “Mother Earth.” He also cited Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the work of Bill McKibben.

These overarching technical concepts went hand-in-hand with some indigenous beliefs. Owl summarized his grandmother’s teachings of coal being the Earth’s liver, stone as its bones and trees as its lungs. Now, with deforestation as rampant as fossil fuel usage, the damage is becoming apparent.

About 200,000 people die from air pollution each year in the US alone. “It is a pandemic every year, that we don’t recognize,” Owl said, explaining how air pollution and COVID-19 work in a deadly team.

Conditions will only get worse if action is not taken. Owl invited his colleague Maryka Paquette, Communications Manager of Rainforest Foundation US, to speak on the overlap between indigenous and environmental issues in South America.

Paquette explained the nonprofit was founded 30 years ago when the rainforests first became seen as vital to global ecology. Its initiative focuses on protecting indigenous peoples’s rights to their land and their forests, because the forests they manage are known to have higher biodiversity and carbon management. Today, they are supporting an initiative to give communities in the Amazon drones and GPS technology for monitoring their forests for illegal intrusions.

The nonprofit also takes legal action on behalf of indigenous communities. Later that day, a member planned on speaking out at a hearing to condemn Peruvian authorities’ failure to act following the assassinations of several indigenous leaders who protested illegal logging. After being postponed seven times, the case was gaining international interest.

One attendee asked about the reasons behind deforestation. Paquette answered logging, gold mining and destructive styles of agricultural expansion were often overlooked or encouraged by local governments. The true tragedy, she said, was how most sustainable land management methods were ignored by those who favored immediate economic profit over long term sustainability.

At the end, Tucker-Borrut asked Owl, “How can we as Ramapo College faculty, students and staff be better allies to the Ramapo Mountain peoples?” He replied that this meeting could be the start of a great dialogue, especially since the switch to online meetings could close the distance between those who want to learn more and those who want to teach. He recommended members of the Ramapo community to keep an eye on the Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp Facebook page for future events.

The Ramapo community already has a history of working with the local indigenous communities to protect the environment and their rights. In 2017, students joined protests to defend local land that the Lenape Nation used for religious ceremonies. It was a shining example of how anyone interested in the subjects discussed above must listen, learn and be willing to act.

 

Written by Danielle Bongiovanni (dbongiov@ramapo.edu) on October 10, 2020

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Categories: event

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April 16, 2020Earth Day 2020: A Three Day, Non-stop, Live, Online Event

 Join us on Earth Day, 2020–for three days of non-stop live events…!

Categories: Sustainability

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April 26, 2018Earth Day 2018

1STEP (Students Together for Environmental Progress) and several other Ramapo clubs came together for the “Jamapo Green BBQ” in celebration of Earth Day on April 22, 2018. The event included catered food from local vegan restaurants, an interactive performance by the Brazilian Percussion group, yoga sessions, a clothing swap, a t-shirt design event, and of course music. The turn out for the event was great and the weather couldn’t have been better.

The highlight of the day came with the unveiling of “Trashzilla,” a sculpture in the form of Godzilla, designed entirely out of trash collected from campus cleanups of the parking lot and other areas on campus. The idea for the project came from 1STEP co-president, Afnán Khairullah, and was assembled by volunteers from 1STEP and the Visual Arts Society over a series of weeks leading up to Earth Day.

Trashzilla is currently on display in the grove area on campus and will be there until April 27. Trashzilla serves as a reminder of the waste problem that permeates our campus. Too often we see improperly disposed of trash, especially materials that could be recycled. Hopefully this art installation will inspire members of the community to be more mindful of their waste disposal habits. Earth Day comes once a year, but shouldn’t we consider our relationship and impact on the Earth every day?

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Categories: Sustainability

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February 14, 2018Film Screening: Plastic Planet

We are students in Professor Pat Keaton’s Global Communication Capstone Course.  For our project, we chose to create a campaign based on promoting sustainability and minimizing waste on Ramapo’s campus. Working closely with Ramapo Green and two of its participating organizations; 1STEP and the Garden Club, we hope to raise awareness and educate the Ramapo community on proper recycling, composting and waste-reduction habits. Our campaign will work to not only promote our events but assist the organizations on campus that have been working tirelessly on related projects.

For our first event, we will be screening Plastic Planet on Wednesday, Feb. 21 from 1–3pm in Friends Hall (SC-219). This documentary directed by Werner Boote provides an ​inside look at plastic and its effects not only on the planet but our health.

Along with the screening, we will have a panel discussion with members of the on-campus organization 1STEP, who will present their “Rethink Water” campaign, and Matthew Smith, Senior Organizer for Food & Water Watch, who will present their National “Take Back the Tap” campaign.

Come take part in this critical discussion.

Categories: Sustainability

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October 21, 2017CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY DAY, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2017, 1-3 PM

A bunch of us went to the AASHE Conference in San Antonio, and feasted on an amazing array of ideas and products promoting campus sustainability

Join us, and we share these with the RCNJ community.

REGISTER HERE

Categories: Sustainability

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