According to a press release, the programs include a lecture from photographer and author James Balog, a benefit dinner to fund building water wells in Africa ?and more.
Ellie Symes, the finance director for the IU Sustainability Council, said SustainIU is the keynote week for increasing sustainability awareness on campus and highlighting the initiatives taken toward sustainability progress.
“We try to put everyone on campus on the same page about sustainability issues,” she said. “There will be career panels, lectures, film screenings and more that accord with the theme. These events should inform people about taking advantage of water scarcity.”
Symes spoke of the goals the IU Sustainability Council has strived for since its ?inception in 2009.
“We’re trying to tackle sustainability issues on campus,” she said. “We set objectives and prioritize what students want through voting and other methods in accordance with other organizations. We have personal goals which we want the ?student body to follow.”
According to Katherine Finola, projects and events director of the IU Student Sustainability Council, the events that will take place at SustainIU are directly catered to solving sustainability problems at IU.
“When it becomes more localized, people get the inside view of what’s happening,” she said. “When it’s for a smaller group, it becomes less intimidating. We now have students who are aware of what the issues are with sustainability and what we’re doing to ?solve it.”
Finola said this year the Student Sustainability Council has been collecting donations to help promote sustainability through capital projects. Things like solar panels are being reinvested into campus, she said.
She also said survival could become a ?struggle if the current attitude toward sustainability continues.
“We need to understand as a generation that everything in the future is going to be less efficient,” she said. “The lack of sustainability affects our lives, along with our children, grandchildren and so on. Everyone should have these thoughts in the back of their minds as they move forward.”
David Cohen, membership and publicity director of the IU Student ?Sustainability Council, said water has recently been valued more highly than gold and oil in trade markets.
“People don’t have access to good drinking water, and this brings the risk of fighting infection,” he said. “Students are going to be living all over the world, and having everyone aware about how to cut back water waste and to prevent depletion and droughts is important before we set out into the world and set our own goals.”
Cohen said the goal to solving sustainability is for the world to take on the ?challenges together.
“When it comes to something we’re all bound by, which is the planet we live on, it’s a good idea for everyone to get in touch with the issues we’re facing and try to solve them together,” he said.
